LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Slielf-.-A4..5 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



MAN, MONEY, AND THE BIBLE; 



OR, 



BIBLICAL EGONOMIGS. 



A TREATISE UPON THE ECONOMICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE, 

AND ITS SOLUTION OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEMS THAT 

CONFRONT THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



/ 



BY REV. JOHN R. ALLEN, D.D. 



^3603 ^ 



Printed pok the Author. 

Publishing House of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 

Barbee & Smith, Agents, Nashville, Tenn. 

1891. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1891, 

By John R. Allen, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



DEDICATION. 



TO 

TWRS. 7MV. 75. Kl-l-EN, 

« 

The Mother Who Aided My Childhood, 

AND TO — 

The Wife Who Has Cheered My Manhood, as a Slight 

Mark of the Respect and Affection He 

Cherishes for Them, 

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY 

The Author. 
(3) 



PREFACE. 

In this monograph I have endeavored to show the practicabil- 
ity of constructing a system of economy from the principles of 
divine revelation, rather than to actually construct one. I do 
not believe that finite wisdom can discover the great fundament- 
al laws of sociology without divine help. Ethics tried once to 
walk alone, but she proved so feeble that she was compelled 
to come back and lean reverently on the Word of God for sup- 
port. I believe that political economy must do the same. In 
this work I try to show the wisdom of such a course. Man re- 
bels against the position of mere learner to which this reduces 
him ; he would much rather display his own wisdom in the con- 
struction of a system of economics than take a ready-made one 
from his Creator. But this humility will be good for him, and 
it is his only course. 

It may be asked : " If this system is in the Bible, why not go di- 
rect to the Bible for it? Why write this book ? " A recent writer 
has said that the Bible contains theology just as the heavens 
contain astronomy, but man must in each case search out the 
science from the data which God has given him. Just so these 
Scriptures contain anthropology, which contains sociology, which 
contains economics; but man is left to hunt out and classify 
these principles which God has revealed. 

This is the task which I have set myself, and to which I have 
given time, labor, and prayer. If I have contributed any light 
at all upon this subject, which I believe to be the most important 
now up for discussion, I shall be rewarded for all my work. For 
years I have revolved these questions in my mind, and have la- 
bored upon these problems. The results are here; the value will 
soon be determined. 

(5) 



INTRODUCTION. 



In our day the world of thought is in a ferment. The founda- 
tions of things are being dug up and examined as with a hghted 
torch. Past sohitions of problems do not satisfy. Each man 
must find a solution for himself. The traditional and accepted 
order of things must be called before the bar of human judg- 
ment, and show cause why it should continue to be, and why it 
would not be right for it to give way to another and a better 

order. 

Religion herself, the guide and comfort of man here, and the 
foundation for his hope hereafter, has been compelled to prove 
anew her right to fill her exalted offices. Out of that crucial 
ordeal of criticism she has come with added beauty and undi- 
minished power, shorn only of some meretricious ornaments 
which man without divine warrant had added, in a vain and 
foolish effort to heighten her charms. 

Among the things whose right to be is being examined m 
our day are the traditional and accepted customs of getting and 
holding property. A mass of human beings, crushed by these 
custom^'s into hopeless poverty and suffering, are no longer dis- 
posed to submit as to an unalterable decree of fate, or as to a 
beneficent providence which will make up for the ills of their 
present state in a future world. They have seen the monarch 
called into the august court of humanity, and required to estab- 
lish his claim to a divine right to rule ; and they have seen judg- 
ment rendered against him. They have seen the aristocratic and 
intelligent classes summoned before the same bar, and required 
to make good their title to control the destinies of the race; and 
judgment went against them. Now the sans callottcs are clamor- 
ous that the third estate, the wealth gatherers and holders, shall 
come into that great court and show cause why they should re- 
tain the special privileges which they have heretofore possessed. 
The defendants deny jurisdiction; but the papers have been 
served, and the trial will go on, nolens rolens, to what end God 
onlv knows. Questions have been raised in the meantime which 

(7) 



8 Introduction. 

must be answered; they press for answer. The right to hind, 
the title to all property, the rights of inheritance and bequest, the 
power to employ and discharge, the right to combine — both in 
regard to capital and labor — to strike and boycott; all these are 
up for discussion, and the diverse and jangling voices attempting 
an answer make a pandemonium. Meantime numbers of hu- 
man beings suffer — not in silence or patience, but with wild out- 
cries or in sullen anger that bodes no good. 

Is not there a science devoted to the answer of all these eco- 
nomic questions? and have not the foremost of intellects laid 
down its principles in clear and truth-seeming /ormwL-e .^ Let 
the crowd hush, and hear their philosophic answer to these 
problems. But the crowd will not hush ; because these answers 
feed not the hungry, nor clothe the naked, nor warm the freezing. 
In fact, the mightiest voices among these savants say, coldly and 
calmly, that it is better for some to starve and others to freeze, as 
the survivors will be in better condition. Somehow the wretched 
victims cannot be reconciled to this sort of vicarious sacrifice, 
nor can the rest of mankind be made to pay much more respect 
to the deliverances of political economy. Upon this subject 
Henry George, the most potent voice America has yet produced 
in economic science, speaks as follows: "That political economy, 
as at present taught, does not explain the persistency of poverty 
amid advancing wealth, in a manner which accords with the 
deep-seated perceptions of men; that the unquestionable truths 
which it does teach are unrelated and disjointed; that it has 
failed to make the progress in popular thought that truth, even 
when unpleasant, must make; that, on the contrary, after a cent- 
ury of cultivation, during which it has engrossed the attention 
of some of the most subtle and powerful intellects, it should be 
spurned by the statesman, scouted by the masses, and relegated, 
in the opinion of many educated and thinking men, to the rank 
of a pseudo-science in which nothing is fixed or can be fixed, 
must, it seems to me, be due not to any inability of the science 
when properly pursued, but to some false step in its premises or 
overlooked factor in its estimates." 

Ah, that missing factor! Has George picked up the dropped 
stitch? So complex has our modern civilization become that it 
becomes exceedingly important that a few great principles of so- 
ciology be established, the observance of which will " make for 



Introduction. 9 

righteousness '' and justice and for the material advancement of 
the people. But amid the warring interests of humanity what 
man is able to foresee the working of any new principle — • 
whether, taken on the whole, it will be advantageous or disad- 
vantageous ? We need these new principles.in economic science. 
Now if they are not already in existence, where shall we go 
to get them? They must be simple^ obvious, axiomatic, and au- 
thoritative. 

Is there a philosopher among, us who is prepared to give 
them to us? If there were, is there any chance for his utter- 
ances to come with that authority which is demanded? I think 
either is beyond hope. There are too many factors entering 
into the simplest problem of sociology for any mind occupying 
no higher plane than the human intellect to ever arrive at a cor- 
rect solution. 

But it may be said that it is not new principles which are 
wanted, but simply the discovery of the principles or laws of so- 
ciology which have acted for good in the past, and laying them 
down for man's guidance in the future. . Here indeed we are 
more capable of doing something, and in this field the great po- 
litical economists have added much that is valuable to human 
thought, and have contributed their quota to the advancement 
of the race; but we confess that they seem to us to have been 
much more successful in pointing out the evil principles — the 
things which have caused friction and confusion, and hence are 
to be avoided — than in discovering beneficial laws. Some at 
least of the latter, of at least the Mills school of economists, ap- 
pear to be actually pernicious. The very evils which are taking 
on such a threatening character in our day are the legitimate out- 
growth of these maxims of philosophers, which they have stated 
as dogmatically as if they were axiomatic. Have they not tauglit 
us that selfishness is, and ought to be, the controlling principle 
with man? Have they not taught that vice and crime and 
starvation and debauchery and war and pestilence are good 
things, as they either prevent the addition to a dense population 
or thin it out? 

Let us test, as a means of determining the value of the axi- 
oms of this science, what Henry George calls their basis: "For 
political economy is not a set of dogmas. It is the science 
Which, in the sequence of certain i:)henomena, seeks to trace 



10 Introduction, 

mutual relations and to identify cause and effect, just as the 
l)hysical sciences seek to do in other sets of phenomena. It lays 
its foundations ujDon firm ground. The premises from which it 
makes its deductions are truths which have the highest sanc- 
tions, axioms which we all recognize, upon which we safely base 
the reasonings and actions of every-day life, and which may be 
reduced to the metaphysical expression of the physical law that 
motion seeks the line of least resistance — viz., that men seek to 
gratify their desires with the least exertion. Proceeding from a 
basis*thus assured, its processes, which consist simply in identi- 
fication and separation, have the same certainty. In this sense 
it is as exact a science as geometry, which from similar truths 
relative to space obtains its conclusions by similar means, and 
its conclusions when valid should be as self-apparent. And al- 
though in the domain of political economy we cannot test our 
theories by artificially produced combinations or conditions, as 
may be done in some of the other sciences; yet we can ai)ply 
tests no less conclusive by comparing societies in which different 
conditions exist, or by in imagination separating, combining, 
adding, or eliminating forces or factors of known direction." 

Here, then, it is: " Men seek to gratify their desires with the 
least exertion. In this sense it is as exact a science as geome- 
try." Let us test this exactitude: " JMen seek to gratify their de- 
sires." Now if there were any uniformity in men's desires, we 
might have a basis for a science ; but some men desire present 
gratification, some financial or business success, some indolent 
ease, some scholastic attainments, some literary fame, some to 
grasp the reins of power, some virtue, holiness, purity. Their 
desires are not only not uniform, but they lie in entirely differ- 
ent planes — the plane of the sensuous, the intellectual, the 
moral. If Henry George be correct in his statement, how can 
the science be worth any thing which starts with an assump- 
tion of uniformity where there is the utmost possible diver- 
gence? 

It may be said that the law remains the same, however di- 
verse the objects of desire. True, but we must have knowledge 
of the things desired before we can calculate the results this 
law will work out. Hence there must be absolute uniformity in 
the character of humanity's desires, or there must be an exact 
knowledge of the amount and character of the divergence, or 



Introduction. 11 

your science will not only be inexact, but false. Who cannot see 
at a glance that there are too many unknown and unknowable 
factors here for any thing like a foundation for a science? The 
truth is tlmt such an effort to make an exact science is conscious- 
ly or unconsciously the outgrowth of a belief that man is a 
thing, and not a i^ower; and hence that his actions in given cir- 
cumstances may be calculated as we calculate the eclipse of the 
sun. Surely it is not necessary for me to refute this assumption 
here. If it were true, then such men as William of Orange, 
George Washington, Livingston, Peabody, Howard, and all the 
names who have uplifted humanity and advanced the interests 
of the race by self-sacrifice, would be impossible. History Avould 
be a monotonous record of Caesars, Napoleons, Goulds, Fisks, et 
id omne genus. Here is the mistake of the political economists 
of the IMill school. They have assumed not only that most 
men are selfish, but that all men are and ought to b'e, and that 
wealth is and ought to be the object of their desires. It is true 
that they have pointed out and condemned some policies that 
are eminently grounded in narrow selfishness ; but they do it by 
proving that such or such a policy is a mistaken effort to build 
up self not because it is wrong, but because it fails to accomplish 
its object. And they simply propose to furnish misguided self- 
ishness wdth a better pilot. 

That, starting with this error, the science has come so near 
explaining tl:^^ events of the past and disclosing the motive 
power behind some of the most complex movements of the 
present, that in practical life it has been nearly apx^roximately 
true, comes from the fact that there is so small an excej^tion in 
the race to the rule laid dow^n that men are selfish, and that the 
object of their desires is wealth. But it is the excepted fraction, 
small as it is numerically, which has exercised the greatest in- 
fluence for good in the past; and the hope of the future lies in 
the increase of this fraction, and not in its elimination. 

That school of the science of wealth wdiich is here combated 
has assumed from the start that it was dealing with practical 
life, with men as they are; that it was its duty to tell them how 
they must act in order to secure advanta,c^e to themselves, and 
not how they ought to act to fulfill the measure of their obliga- 
tion. But if there is any field for ethics — the science of right 
action — in this world, by what sort of logic can ethics be ex- 



12 Introduction. 

eluded from that part of a man's life which concerns the acquir- 
ing, holding, and managing of his wealth? Economics is in 
truth but a part of the wider and higher science of ethics, and 
the laws of right action which are discovered in this higher field 
are operative in this part of it. No man has ever had the right 
to banish " ought " and substitute " may " or " must " or " can " 
in this or any other department of human action. Economics, 
then, is simply a department of ethics. 

There was an effort made in the last century to disassociate 
ethics or moral philosophy from religion, and make it stand 
alone. For awhile the effort seemed successful, but soon over 
all Europe the pernicious effect of this philosophy appeared in 
the growing immorality of the people. Coleridge and others 
entered the field to protest against the unnatural divorce of relig- 
ion from morals, and to show that the life of the latter was de- 
rived from the former; nor have their arguments ever been an- 
swered. Man has never yet constructed a system of morals that 
did not derive its principles from religion, and did not look to 
religion for its sanctions. The revelation of God, as found in 
the Bible, is the foundation, not indeed for all the books written 
upon the subject of morality, but of all. the recognized author- 
ity for moral action among the masses in civilized nations. This 
is a living, operative power among men. The cold abstractions 
of any philosopher, so far as they are independent of it, are 
powerless inanities. 

Now then we see that religion is inclusive of ethics, and eth- 
ics is inclusive of economics; hence economics is included in re- 
ligion, and inseparable from it. If we go to religion — the real 
science of sociology, including what man ought to be in him- 
self, and how he ought to act toward all others — we find there 
for economics, as for the whole field of ethics, the simple iDrinciples 
which we need. They have, too, all the desirable qualities — 
simplicity and obviousness, that all may understand; they are 
axiomatic, commanding the immediate assent of men's minds ; 
they are authoritative, resting upon God's own word. 

These principles, however, are not accepted and acted upon 
by a majority of the people; but only by a small minority. 
These jDrinciples, worked out, give us a system of economics as it 
ought to be, and not as it actually is. Yet it is true that that 
fraction in whose development the future of the world depends 



liitivductioiL 13 

are all found here; and more or le.^s they, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, believe in and practice these Christian principles. 

Mr. Mill gives us the actual econonomic principles upon 
which the majority of men act, but he makes a grievous error 
in not calculating the variation from the selfish principle on the 
part of those who are guided in their actions by higher motives 
than this. By just so much he makes an erroneous science. 
Then, too, he makes a mistake in accepting the motives which 
ordinarily move men as right, and to be encouraged. Iklany of 
these natural motives are wrong, and man can only advance as 
they are eliminated. 

But if we do not construct the science of economics upon and 
•from this principle of selfishness— not well-regulated self-love- 
then there is only one other way to construct a logical treatise, and 
that is to construct it upon and from the great precepts of the 
Bible. Good books about economics may be written, containing 
much truth, but they cannot be logical or consistent unless they 
proceed from one or the other of these centers; and to be cor- 
rect they must in either case take into consideration the exist- 
ence of the contrary principle with which it is at war, and 
which acts as a brake upon the perfect operation of the princi- 
ple which may be in hand. 

In this little book, when I combat political economy, it is the 
selfish school of which I am speaking. I shall try here to hunt 
out and show the correlation of these economic principles of the 
Bible; and to show that they are practical, sensible, and operate 
to the best interest of the individual and of the body politic. 

I believe that the true relation of the wealth -getter to society 
either upon a small or a large scale, and his duty, have never 
been rightly presented. 

The class of philosophers whom we oppose have calmly 
waved religion out of the realm of practical business Hear 
Adam Smith: "The institutions for the instruction of men of 
all ages are diiefly those for religious instruction. This is a spe- 
cies of instruction of which the object is not so much to render 
the people good citizens in this world as to prepare them for an- 
other and better world in the life to come." 

Nor are these philosophers alone responsible for this idea 
of the separateness of practical business and religion. The 
Church has taught little else in reference to wealth-gettino- 



14 Introduction. 

than that it was wrong. Here is what John "Wesley says on the 
subject: 

" Therefore ' lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, 
where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break 
through and steal.' If you do, it is plain your eye is evil ; it is 
not singly fixed on God. With regard to most of the command- 
ments of God, whether relating to the heart or life, the heathens 
of Africa or America stand much on a level with those that are 
called Christians. The Christians observe them (a few only be- 
ing excepted) very near as much as the heathens. For instance, 
the generality of the natives of England, commonly called Chris- 
tians, are as sober and a? temperate as the generality of the 
heathens near the Cape of Good Hope. And so the Dutch or 
French Christians are as humble and as chaste as the Choctaw 
or Cherokee Indians. It is not easy to Fay, when we compare 
the bulk of the nations in Europe with those in America, wheth- 
er the superiority lies on the one side or the other. At least, 
the American has not much the advantage. But we cannot af- 
firm this with regard to the command now before us. Here the 
heathen has far the pre-eminence. He desires and seeks noth- 
ing more than plain food to eat and plain raiment to put on, 
and he seeks this only from day to day. He reserves, he lays 
up nothing, unless it be as much corn at one season of the year 
as he will need before that season returns. This command, 
therefore, the heathens, though they know it not, do constantly 
and punctually observe. They May up for themselves no treas- 
ures upon earth,^ no stores of purple or fine linen, of gold or sil- 
ver, which either ' moth or rust may corrupt, or thieves break 
through and steal.' But how do the Christians observe Mhat 
they profess to receive as a command of the most high God? 
Not at all ; not in any degree ; no more than if no such command 
had ever been given to man. Even the good Christians, as they 
are accounted by others as well as themselves, pay no manner 
of regard thereto. It might as well be still hid in its original 
Greek, for any notice they take of it. In what Christian city 
do you find one man of five hundred who makes the least 
scruple of laying up just as much treasure as he can, of in- 
creasing his goods just as far as he is able? There are, indeed, 
those who would not do this unjustly ; there are many who 
will neither rob nor steal, and some who will not defraud 



Introduction. 15 

their neighbor — nay, who will not gain either by his ignorance 
or necessity. 

" But this is quite another point. Even these do not scruple 
the thing, but the manner of it. They do not scruple the 'lay- 
ing up treasures upon earth,' but the laying them up by dishon- 
esty. They do not start at disobeying Christ, but at a breach 
of heathen morality; so that even these honest men do no more 
obey this command than a highwayman or a house-breaker. 
Nay, they never designed to obey it. From their youth up it 
never entered into their thoughts. They were bred up by their 
Christian parents, masters, and friends, without any instruction 
at all concerning it, unless it were this: to break it as soon and 
as much as they could, and to continue breaking it to their lives' 
end." (" Wesley's Sermons," Vol. II., p. 13.) 

Wesley recognizes the inclusion of economics in religion: 

" From those which are commonly tenned religious actions, and 
which are real branches of true religion where they spring from 
a pure and holy intention, and are i)crformed in a manner suit- 
able thereto, our Lord proceeds to the actions of common life, 
and shows that the same purity of intention is as indispensably 
required in our ordinary business as in giving alms or fasting 
or prayer. 

"And without question the same purity of intention which 
makes our alms and devotions accej^table must also make our 
labor or employment a proper offering to God. If a man pursues 
his business that he may raise himself to a state of figure and 
riches in the world, he is no longer serving God in his employ- 
ment, and has no more title to a reward from God than he who 
gives alms that he may be seen or prays that he may be heard 
of men; for vain and earthly designs are no more allowable in 
our employments than in our alms and devotions. They are not 
only evil when they mix with our good wofks [with our relig- 
ious actions], but they have the same evil nature when they en- 
ter into the common business of our employments. If it were 
allowable to pursue them in our worldly employments, it would 
be allowable to pursue them in our devotions. But as our alms 
and devotions are not an acceptable service but when they pro- 
ceed from a pure intention, so our common employment cannot 
be reckoned a service to liim but when it is performed with the 
same piety of heart." (" Wesley's Sermons," Vol. II., p. 7.) 



16 Introduction, 

But the following extract shows that religion allowed, in Mr. 
Wesley's estimation, wealth-getting to go only to the provision 
for the simple.^t necessaries of life: 

"Do you ask what it is to 'lay up treasures on earth?' It will 
be needful to examine this thoroughly. And let us first observe 
wliat is not forbidden in this command, that we may then 
clearly discern what is. 

"We are not forbidden in this command, first, to 'provide 
things honest in the sight of all men,' to provide wherewith we 
may render unto all their due, whatsoever they can justly de- 
mand of us. So far from it that we are taught of God to ' owe no 
man any thing.' We ought, therefore, to use all diligence in 
our calling in order to owe no man any thing; this being no 
other than a plain law of common justice, which our Lord came 
'not to destroy, but to fulfill.' 

"Neither, secondly, does he here forbid the providing for 
ourselves such things as are needful for the body — a sutiiciency 
of plain, wholesome food to eat and clean raiment to put on. 
Yea, it is our duty, so far as God puts it into our power, to pro- 
vide these things also, to the end that we may eat our ow^n bread 
and be burdensome to no man. 

" Nor yet are we forbidden, thirdly, to provide for our children 
and for those of our own household. This also it is our duty to 
do, even upon principles of heathen morality. Every man ought 
to provide the plain necessaries of life, both for his own wife 
and children, and to put them in a capacity of providing these 
for themselves when he has gone hence and is no more seen. I 
say of providing these, the plain necessaries of life^ — not delica- 
cies, not superfluities — and that by their diligent labor; for it is 
no man's duty to furnish them, any more than himself, with the 
means either for luxury or idleness. But if any man provide 
not thus far for his own children (as well as for the widows of 
his own house, of whom primarily St. Paul is speaking in those 
well-known words to Timothy), he hath practically 'denied the 
faith,' and is 'worse than an infidel ' or heathen. 

" Lastly, we are not forbidden in these words to lay up, from 
time to time, what is needful for the carrying on of our worldly 
business in such a measure and degree as is sufficient to answer 
the foregoing purposes in such a measure as, first, to owe no 
man any thing; secondly, to procure for ourselves the necessa- 



Introduction. 17 

ries of life ; and, thirdly, to furnish those of our .own house with 
them while we live, and with the means of procuring them 
when we are gone to God. 

" AVe may now clearly discern (unless we are unwilling to dis- 
cern it) what that is which is forbidden here. It is the design- 
edly procuring more of this world's goods than will answer the 
foregoing purposes. The laboring after a larger measure of 
worldly substance, a larger increase of gold and silver, the lay- 
ing up any more than these ends require, is what is here ex- 
pressly and absolutely forbidden. If the words have any mean- 
ing at all, it must be this; for they are capable of no other. 
Consequently whoever he is that, owing no man any thing, and 
having food and raiment for himself and his household, togeth- 
er with a sufficiency to carry on his worldly business, so far as 
answers these reasonable purposes ; whosoever, I say, being al- 
ready in these circumstances, seeks a still larger portion on 
earth, he lives in an open, habitual denial of the Lord that 
bought him. 'He hath [practically] denied the faith, and is 
worse than [an African or American] infidel.' " 

Mr. AVesley here represents the very best and strongest of 
Christian teaching in the past; and a careful study of his words 
shows that a man's right action, in his opinion, is reduced to 
getting a living. 

Now I go so far as to say, as over against Mr. Adam Smith on 
the one hand, that the great object of religious instruction is, 
first, to make a man a good citizen of this world, that he may be 
fit for citizenship in a better; and over against Mr. Wesley, on 
the other hand, that it may be a man's du.ty to accumulate large 
wealth. There is no more reason for pressing the words of the 
text Mr. Wesley stresses so strongly as an absolute command 
against accumulation than there is for saying that Christ com- 
mands us to hate our parents when he says : " He that hatetli 
not father and mother is not worthy of me." He bids us pay 
attention to the heavenly rather than the earthly, to make the 
soul of more importance than the body ; and he does forbid lay- 
ing up purely from selfish motives. 

Religion has largely repudiated the wealth-getter in her teach- 
ings, if not in her practice; and as a natural consequence the 
man who felt within himself the God-imj^lanted gifts of an en- 
trepreneur (a manager of affairs) and yet taught that to go into 
2 



18 Introduction. 

his mighty projects for money-making was a sin, either repudiat- 
ed his Christianity or repressed and supjoressed his natural tal- 
ent. Hence there has been a divorce between these two things 
to their mutual injury, and to the great misfortune of the human 
race. Eeligion and the race need the wealth-getter, and the 
wealth-getter may be the most religious of men, not necessarily 
by stripping himself of his wealth, but by simply using it as the 
Bible requires. 

Does not the Saviour say : " How hardly shall they that have 
riches enter into the kingdom of God?" To be sure, and he 
says: "The things that are hnpossible with men are possible 
with God." This hard thing is not only possible with God, but 
in his word he has revealed how it can be accomplished by men. 
All wealth accumulated contrary to the laws he has laid down 
and all wealth held contrary to them is sin, and that without re- 
srard to the amount; and -wealth secured and held in accord 
with the divine law is evidence of the highest virtue. 

I believe that great harm has been done in the realm of eco- 
nomics by following the rush-light of infidel writers instead of 
the sunlight of the word of God. I believe that the laws of rev- 
elation are as true, as authoritative, as beneficial here as in any 
other part of man's work. Hence in this work I am simply 
trying to hunt out the.^e laws of the Bible, and to show their re- 
lations. I assume an acquaintance with the ordinary works of 
political economy, and only treat the subject so far as the tiuths 
of the Bible bear upon it. It is not a political economy, but a 
Biblical economics, dealing mostly with the individual, and but 
little with the body politic. 

It may be objected that this effort to bring economics under 
the laws of the Bible is going in the direction of medipevalism, 
subjecting a science to religious tests. I answer: Material 
sciences are not the subjects of revelation, and are not to be test- 
ed by it; but the very content of revelation is men's duty to God 
and each other. Here it must be true, or it stands discredited and 
disproved. Into this realm political economy intrudes, and it 
must be judged by the Bil)le, or we must throw the Bible away. 

The larger portion of Part I. is devoted to showing the logical 
consequences of some of the principles generally accepted by 
political economists. I simply accept tliese and their conse- 
quences for a time, and eventually substitute the principles of 



Introduction. 19 

the kingdom of Christ for them. I will here say, that the reader 
may at all times have the key to my position, that I beUeve So- 
cialism or Christianity— one or the other— is true. They are 
mutually exclusive, and they exclude all other hypotheses. This 
book is intended to show that the principles of Christianity are 
alone the right ones. 



CONTENTS. 

PART I. 

A Discussion of Property and the Title by Which 
It Is Held. 

Chapter I. Page 

The Title to Property in General, and to Land Especially, 
Investigated 25 

Chapter II. 

An Investigation of the Title Derived by Inheritance and 
Bequest 33 

Chapter III. 
An Investigation of Titles Derived from Sharp Practices, 
Combines, Stock-watering, Trusts, etc. — Conclusions from 
Premises 40 

Chapter IV. 

The Absolute Title to Property Is in God — Man Derives 
His Title from God 44 

Chapter V. 

The Method of the Transfer of Property to the Individual 
Man, and the Character of Title He Receives 50 

PART II. 

Biblical Economics Proper, 

Chapter I. 

Man Must Recognize His Stewardship 59 

Chapter II. 
Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself OS 

Chapter III. 
Mutual Consideration, Mutual Helpfulness, and Doing All 

Work as unto God 77 

^(21) 



22 Contents. 

Chapter IV. Page 
Discontent and Love of Money Condemned 84 

Chapter V. 

Delay of Payments to Laborers, Stealing, Unforgiveness, 
and Sabbath-breaking Forbidden 92 

Chapter VL 
Some Absolute Sociological Laws 95 

PART III. 
What Revolution Shall It Be? 

Chapter I. 
Revolution Imminent lQj9 

Chapter IL 

Revolution Proposed in Co-operation 115 

Chapter III. 

The Revolution Proposed by Henry George in Land Owner- 
ship 120 

Chapter IV. 
The Revolution Pro^iosed in Socialism 127 

Chapter V. 
Christianity or Socialism 133 

PART IV. 

What Can We Do To Promote Reformation in 
IVIoney Matters? 

Chapter I. 
What Can Individuals Do? 147 

Chapter II. 
What Can and Should the State Do? -158 

Chapter III. 
What Can and Ought the Church to Do? 173 



PART 1. 



A DISCUSSION OF PROPERTY AND THE TITLE BY 
WHICH IT IS HELD. 

(23) 



Man, Money, and the Bible. 

CHAPTER I. 

The Title to Property in General, and to Land 
Especially, Investigated. 

IN prosecuting our inquiry, it is necessary for us to 
investigate the title by which man holds his prop- 
erty. The question is: Why is it his? What right 
has he to it more than another? 

" It is his because he made it oi' bought it," would 
be the common answer. The first part of this answer 
maybe accepted as correct: What a man makes is his. 
But buying by no means always gives a good title. 
The man from whom a party buys must have a good 
title, and the man from whom the second party bought, 
and the man from whom the third party bought ; and 
so on, back to the original maker. If the title at the 
start was bad, then no subsequent number of transfers 
can correct it. For instance, a chair-maker makes a 
chair. It is his, and he can sell it, and the title of 
the man buying it will be as good as his own; and so 
with all transfers that can be traced back to him. 
Suppose, however, that some one should steal the 
chair from the maker. Then the thief, of course, has 
no title; and hence the man who buys from him can 
get no title, although he may pay the full value of 
the article; nor could a hundred transfers, starting 
from this bad source, make the title good. The maker 

(25) 



26 Man, Monetj, and the Bihle. 

of the chair, who has been unjustly deprived of it, 
can in equity reclaim it wherever he may find it. 

Yery little of what any of us possess has been 
made by ourselves; most of it has been bought. Now, 
did we buy a good title? Perhaps if the chain of 
title were traced back to its original source, it would 
be found to -have started in fraud. If so, then our 
title is clouded. 

Starting, then, with the two principles — What a man 
makes is his, and Transfer cannot improve a had title — 
we will investigate the right to the various kinds of 
property held by man. 

The validity of all our titles to land has long been 
raised by political economists of liigh standing. 
Henry George is by no means the oldest or the fore- 
most philosopher who has questioned this title. Hear 
what John Stuart Mill says: " These are the reasons 
which form the justification, in an economical point 
of view, of property in land. It is seen that they are 
only valid in so far as the proprietor of land is its im- 
prover. Whenever, in any country, the proprietor, 
generally speaking, ceases to be the improves, polit- 
ical economy has nothing to say in defense of landed 
property, as there established. In no sound theory 
of private property was it ever contemplated that the 
proprietor of land should be merely a sinecurist quar- 
tered on it." (Book II., Chap. IL, § 6.) 

This sweeps away all real title to imimproved lands, 
whether wild lands or unimproved lots in a city. In 
fact, it denies title to land, and recognizes it only in 
the improvements upon the land. To this logical end 
his disciple, Henry George, has gone; and he pre- 
sents his views with decided force. Of this, however, 



Title to Property, Land Especially, Investlyated. 27 

we will give tlie reader an opportunity of judging by 
an extended extract: 

And for this reason, that which a man makes or produces is 
his own, as against all the world — to enjoy or to destroy, to use, 
to exchange, or to give. No one else can rightfully claim it, and 
his exclusive right to it involves no wrong to any one else. Thus 
there is to every thing produced by human exertion a clear and 
indisputable title to exclusive possession and enjoyment, which 
is perfectly consistent with justice, as it descends from the origi- 
nal producer, in whom it vested by natural law. The pen with 
which I am writing is justly mine. No other human being can 
rightly lay claim to it, for in me is the title of the producers who 
made it. It has become mine, because transferred to me by the 
stationer, to whom it was transferred by the importer, who ob- 
tained the exclusive right to it by transfer from the manufact- 
urer; in whom, by the same process of purchase, vested the 
rights of those who dug the material from the ground and 
shaped it into a pen. Thus my exclusive right of ownership in 
the pen springs from the natural right of the individual to the 
use of his own faculties. 

Now this is not only the original source from which all ideas 
of exclusive ownership arise — as is evident from the natural 
tendency of the mind to revert to it when the idea of exclusive 
ownership is questioned, and the manner in which social rela- 
tions develop — but it is necessarily the only source. There can 
be to the ownership of any thing no rightful title which is not 
derived from the title of the producer and does not rest upon 
the natural right of the man to himself. There can be no other 
rightful title; because (1) there is no other natural right from 
Mdiich any other title can be derived ; and (2) because the recogni- 
tion of any other title is inconsistent with and destructive of this. 

1. For what other right exists from which the right to the 
exclusive possession of any thing can be derived, save the right 
of a man to himself? With what other power is man by nature 
clothed, save the power of exerting his own faculties? How can he 
in any other way act upon or affect material things or other men? 
Paralyze the motor nerves, and your man has no more external 
influence or power than a log or a stone. From what else, then, 
can the right of possessing and controlling things be derived? 



28 Man, Monei/, and the Bible. 

If it springs not from man himself, from what can it spring? 
Nature acknov/ledges no ownership or control in man, save as 
the result of exertion. In no other way can her treasures be 
drawn forth, her powers directed, or her forces utilized or con- 
trolled. She makes no discriminations among men, but is to all 
absolutely impartial. She knows no distinction between master 
and slave, king and subject, saint and girmer. All men to her 
stand upon an equal footing and have equal rights. She recog-' 
nizes no claim but that of labor, and recognizes that without re- 
spect to the claimant. If a pirate spread his sails, the wind will 
fill them as well as it will fill those of a peaceful merchantman 
or missionary bark; if a king and a common man be thrown 
overboard, neither can keep his head above water except by 
swimming; birds will not come to be shot by the proprietor of 
the soil any quicker tlian they will come to be shot by the 
poacher; fish will bite or will not bite at a hook in utter disre- 
gard of whether it is offered them by a good little boy who goes 
to Sunday-school or a bad little boy who plays truant; grain will 
grow only as the ground is prepared and the seed sown ; it is 
only at the call of labor that ore can be raised from the mine; 
the sun shines and the rain falls alike upon the just and the un- 
just. The laws of nature are decrees of the Creator. There is 
written in them no recognition of any right save that of labor; 
and in them is written broadly and clearly the equal right of all 
men to the use and enjoyment of nature: to apply to her by 
their exertions, and to receive and possess her reward. Hence, 
as nature gives only to labor, the exertion of labor in production 
is the only title to exclusive possession. 

2, This right of ownership that springs from labor excludes 
the possibility of any other right of ownership. If a man be 
rightfully entitled to the produce of his labor, then no one can 
be rightfully entitled to the ownership of any thing wdiich is 
not the produce of his labor, or the labor of some one else from 
w hom the right has passed to him. If production gives to the 
jiroducer the right to exclusive possession and enjoyment, there 
can rightfully be no exclusive possession and enjoyment of any 
thing not the production of labor, and the recognition of private 
property in land is a wrong; for the right to the produce of la- 
bor cannot be enjoyed without the right to the free use of the 
opportunities offered by nature, and to admit the right of prop- 



Title to Propertij, Land EspeciaUy, Inrestigated. 29 

erty in these is to deny the right of property in the produce of 
labor. When non-producers can claim as rent a portion of the 
wealth created by producers, the right of producers to the fruits 
of their labor is to that extent denied. 

Tliere is no escape from this position. To affirm that a man 
can rightfully claim exclusive ownership in his own labor when 
embodied in material things is to deny that any one can right- 
fully claim exclusive ownership in land. To affirm the rightful- 
ness of property in land is to affirm a claim which has no war- 
rant in nature, as against a claim founded in the organization of 
man and the laws of the material universe. 

What most prevents the realization of the injustice of private 
property in land is the habit of including all the things that are 
made the subject of ownership, in one category, as j)ropert)^; or, 
if any distinction is made, drawing the line, according to the 
unphilosophical distinction of the lawyers, between personal 
property and real estate, or things movable and things immova- 
ble. The real and natural distinction is between things which 
are the produce of labor and things which are the gratuitous of- 
ferings of nature; or, to adopt the terms of political economy, 
between wealth and land. 

These two classes of things are in essence and relations wide- 
ly different, and to class tliem together as i^roi^erty is to confuse 
all thought when we come to consider the justice and injustice, 
the right or the wrong of jiroperty. 

A house and the lot on which it stands are alike property, as 
being the subject of ownership, and are alike classed by the law- 
yers as real estate. Yet in nature and relations they differ wide- 
ly. The one is produced by human labor, and belongs to the 
class in political economy styled wealth. The other is a part of 
nature, and belongs to the class in political economy styled land. 
The essential character of one class of things is that they em- 
body labor, are brought into being by human exertion — their 
existence or non-existence, their increase or diminution depend- 
ing on man. The essential character of the other class of things 
is that they do not embody labor, and exist irrespective of hu- 
man exertion and irrespective of man. They are the field or en- 
vironment in which man finds himself, the store-house from 
which his needs must be supplied, the raw material upon which 
and the forces with whicli^ alone his labor can act. 



30 Man, Money, and the Bible. 

The moment this distinction is realized, that moment is it 
seen that the sanction which natural justice gives to one species 
of property is denied to the other; that the rightfulne.-s which 
attaches to individual propeity in the produce of labor implies 
the wrongfulness of individual property in land; that, wdiereas 
the recognition of the one places all men upon equal terms, se- 
curing to each the due reward of his labor, the recognition of 
the other is the denial of the equal rights of men, permitting 
those who do not labor to take the natural reward of those who 
do. . . , The equal right of all men to the use of land is as 
clear as their equal right to breathe the air. It is a riglit pro- 
claimed by the fiict of their existence ; for we cannot suppose 
that some men have the right to be in this world, and others no 
right. 

If we are all here by the equal permission of the Creator, we 
are all here with an equal title to the enjoyment of his bounty, 
with an equal right to the use of all that nature so impartially 
offers. This is a right that is natural and inalienable ; it is a 
right that invests in every human being as he enters the world, 
and which during his continuance in the world can only be lim- 
ited by the equal rights of others. There is in nature no such 
thing as a fee simple in land. There is on earth no power wliich 
can rightfully make a grant of exclusive ownership in land. If 
all existing men were to unite to grant away their equal rights, 
they could not grant away the rigiits of those who follow them ; 
for what are we but tenants for a day? Have we made the 
earth, that we should determine the rights of those who after us 
shall tenant it in their turn? The Almighty, who created the 
earth for man and man for the earth, has entailed it upon all the 
generations of the children of men by a decree written upon the 
constitution of all things — a decree which no human action can 
bar and no prescription determine. Let the parchments be ever 
so many, or possession ever so long, natural justice can recognize 
no right in one man to the possession and enjoyment of land 
that is not equally the right of all his fellows. Though his titles 
have been acquiesced in by generation after generation, to the 
landed estates of the Duke of Westminster the poorest child 
that is born in London to-day has as much right as has his eld- 
est son. Though the sovereign people of the State of New York 
consent to the landed possessions of the Astors, the puniest in- 



Title to Property, Land Especkdlij, Investigated. 31 

fant that comes wailing into the world, in the squalidest room of 
the most miserable tenement house, becomes at that moment 
seized of an equal right with the millionaires ; and it is robbed 
if the right is denied. ... As for the deduction of a com- 
plete and exclusive individual right to land from priority of oc- 
cupation, that is, if possible, the most absurd ground on which 
land ownership can be defended. Priority of occupation give 
exclusive and i)erpetual title to the surface of a globe on which, 
in the order of nature, countless generations succeed each other? 
Had the men of the last generation any better right to the use of 
this world than we of this, or the men of a hundred years ago, 
or of a thousand years ago? had the mound-builders or the 
cave-dwellers — the contemporaries of the mastodon and the 
three-toed horse — or the generations still farther back, who, in 
dim eons that we can only think of as geologic periods, followed 
each other on the earth we v,o\\ tenant for our little day? 

Has the first comer at a banquet the right to turn back all the 
chairs, and claim that none of the other guests shall partake of 
the food provided, except as they make terms with him? Does 
the first man wdio presents a ticket at the door of a theater and 
passes in acquire by his priority the right to shut the doors and 
have the performance go on for him alone? Does the first pas- 
senger who enters a railroad car obtain the right to scatter his 
baggage over all the seats and compel the passengers who come 
in after him to stand up? 

The cases are perfectly analo;:ous. We arrive and we depart, 
guests, at a banquet continually sj)read, spectators and partici- 
pants in an entertainment where yet there is room for all who 
come, passengers from station to station on an orb that whirls 
through space — our rights to take and possess cannot be exclu- 
sive; they must be bounded everywhere by the equal rights of 
others. Just as the passenger in a railroad car may spread him- 
self and his baggage over as many seats as he pleases until other 
passengers come in, so may a settler take and use as much land 
as he chooses until it is needed by others — a fact which is shown 
by the land acquiring a value — when his right must be curtailed 
by the equal rights of the others, and no priority of appropria- 
tion can give a right which will bar these equal rights of others. 
If this were not the case, then by priority of ai:)proi:>riation one 
man could acquire and could transmit to whom he pleased not 



32 Man^ Money, and the Bible. 

merely the exclusive right to 160 acres, or to 640 acres, but 
to a whole township, a whole State, a whole continent. And to 
this manifest absurdity does the recognition of individual right 
to land come when carried to its ultimates — that any one human 
being, could he concentrate in himself the individual right to 
the land of any country, could expel therefrom all the rest of 
its inhabitants; and, could he thus concentrate the individual 
rights to the whole surface of the globe, he alone of all the teem- 
ing population of the earth would have the right to live. (" Prog- 
ress and Poverty," Book VII., Chap. I.) 

For the present I think that we may set it down 
that Mr. George makes out his case, and pnt down as 
an accepted principle: There is no absolute right to 
individual ownership in land. 



CHAPTEE 11. 

An Investigation of the Title Derived by In- 
heritance AND Bequest. 

LET us apply tlie same character of reasoning 
which Mr. George has nsecl so forcibly to some 
other kind of property rights, and see if it does not 
destroy the title to other kinds of property besides 
that of land. Excuse reiteration in the discussion of 
the abstract right of property. It is necessary to 
have this point clear, and I wish you to see that I am 
proceeding according to the principles recognized in 
political economy. 

Mr. George asks the question: " What is it that en- 
ables a man justly to say of a thing, 'It is mine?'" 
A correct answer to this question will give us the true 
title to property. Let us see some of the answers 
given. Mr. George says: "There can be to the own- 
ership of any thing no rightful title which is not de- 
rived from the title of the producer, and does not 
rest upon the natural right of a man to himself." 
("Progress and Poverty," p. 300.) Mr. Mill says: 
" Private property, in every defense made of it, is sup- 
posed to mean the guarantee to individuals of the 
fruit of their own labor and abstinence." ("Political 
Economy," Book II., Chap. L, § 3.) Also a careful 
definition in Book II., Chapter II., § 1: "The institu- 
tion of property, when limited to its essential elements, 
consists in the recognition, in each person, of a right 
to the exclusive disposal of what he or she may have 
3 (33) 



34 Man, Money, and the Bible. 

produced by their own exertions, or received^eitlier 
by gift or fair agreement, without force or fraud — 
from those who produced it." 

A man's title to any thing must rest on the fact 
that he produced it, or that he has purchased or re- 
ceived it as a gift from the one who made it, or that 
an unbroken chain of title stretches back, with no in- 
tervening fraud, to the maker. 

Now what a man inherits cannot be reduced under 
any part of this definition. Where it comes as the 
result of bequest, it may be said to be a gift, of which 
w^e will speak directly; but where it is inherited as a 
result of the laws of descent, without having been 
willed, it cannot be said to be a gift. In this case is 
there any natural law of justice by which property 
can become a man's? 

Any babe born heljjlessly into this world has a 
right to look for support until such time as it can 
take care of itself. The word "support " here means 
all that is necessary to its real well-being— including 
nurture, protection, education, and providing it a 
chance to make its own way. This claim every new- 
born one has primarily upon those who are responsi- 
ble for its birth. If the parents have stored labor in 
the form we call wealth, then in the case of their 
death the child has a lien upon this wealth for this 
support. To this much of a parent's property the 
child has a natural and equitable right, whether the 
parent lives or dies, and without regard to the legiti- 
macy or illegitimacy of its birth. 

So much of property, then, as comes into a man's 
hands as the result of such a law as this, based in 
nature, is rightly his. Mill regards this in this light: 



Title Derived hy Inheritance and Bequest. 35 

^ "Whatever fortune a parent may have inherited, or, still more, 
may have acquired, I cannot admit that he owes to his children, 
merely because they are his children, to leave them rich, with- 
out the necessity of any exertion. I could not admit it, even if 
to be so left were always and certainly for the good of the chil- 
dren themselves. But this is in the highest degree uncertain. 
It depends on individual character. Without supposing extreme 
cases, it may be affirmed that in a majority of instances the good 
not only of society, but of the individuals, would be better con- 
sulted by bequeathing to them a moderate than a large provis- 
ion. This, which is a common place of moralists — ancient and 
modern — is felt to be true by many intelligent parents, and 
would be acted upon much more frequently if they did not al- 
low themselves to consider le.-s what really is than what will be 
thought by othe/s to be advantageous to the children. The du- 
ties of ])arent^ to their children are those which are indissolubly 
attached to the fact of causing existence of a human being. The 
parent owes to society to endeavor to make the child a good and 
valuable member of it; and owes to the children to provide, as 
far as depends on him, such education and such appliances and 
means as will enable them to start with a fair chance of achiev- 
ing, by their own exerti(3ns, a successful life. To this every child 
has a claim, and I cannot admit that as a child he has a claim 
to more. There is a case in w^hich these obligations present 
themselves in their true light, without any extrinsic circum- 
stances to disguise or confuse them : it is that of an illegitimate 
child. ("Political Economy," Book IL, I 3.) 

Now if there is any argument from the basis of 
natural justice that recognizes any right to goods in- 
herited, beyond this amount necessary to give a child 
a "fair chance, and that construed liberally, I have 
never seen it. 

The same argument which Mr. George lias used so 
effectively, that man's exclusive right to what he has 
produced excludes the right of any man to what he 
has had no hand in producing, applies with just as 
much force to the wealth amassed by preceding gen- 



36 Man^ Monejj, and the Bible. 

erations as it does to the unearned values of nature 
or land. 

The law wliich permits the disinheritance of heirs 
— even children — by will contravenes any thing like 
an inalienable right of inheritance. This law, setting 
aside the right of inheritance, recognizes the abso- 
lute right of man to will his possessions as he 
pleases. 

Let us now investigate this right of bequest, and 
the title of all property held under it. Mr. Mill 
contends for this right: 

Nothing is implied in property but the right of each to his (or 
her) own faculties, to what can be produced, by them, and to 
whatever he can get for them in a fair market; together with 
tlie right to give this to any other j^er^on if he chooses and the 
right of that other to receive and enjoy it. It follows, therefore, 
that although the right of bequest, or gift after death, forms part 
of the idea of private property, the right of inheritance, as dis- 
tinguished from it, does not. (" Political Economy," Book II., 
Chap. II., I 3.) 

It seems to me that the great logician has slipped 
here. Let us investigate this right to will property, 
taking the basis laid down for property — a man's 
right to himself and what he can make. A man makes 
or buys a good title to a piece of property. It is his 
while he lives — to enjoy, to use, to give away, or to 
destroy (the latter only true while reasoning from 
natural law, as according to the Bible and good mor- 
als he has no such right). He has gained a title to 
so much out of existing things. How long in time 
does that title extend? The right of bequest extends 
it beyond a man's life. He not only controls this 
property while living, but says who shall control it 
when he is dead. If a man's right to property ex- 



Title Dericed hy Inheritance and Bequest. 37 

tends an liour beyond liis life, by what reasoning can 
it ever be terminated? Nature has set a limit to the 
time of man's acquisition and enjoyment of property; 
by what argument can unlimited right of control be 
defended ? 

There are two things entering into every product 
of values: man's work and the forces of nature. Let 
us suppose that A has by his own diligence and toil, 
intelligently directed, found a diamond; and that he 
hires B to cut and polish the stone for him, and pays 
him for his labor. There are three items entering 
into the value of that beautiful stone : First, the toil 
of A consumed in its discovery; second, the labor of 
B spent upon it, to which A now has a title by pur- 
chase; third, and in this case the principal item of 
value, the rarity and beauty of the stone, for which 
nature is to be thanked. Now all will admit A's right 
to enjoy this jewel, to sell it, or to give it away while 
he is living. But by the small amount of work rela- 
tive to its value has he obtained a perpetual right to 
its control? I go so far as to say that if he can con- 
trol it one hour after he has left this world for an- 
other, then there is no logical limit in time to its con- 
trol. 

Mr. Mill has the following discussion of the right 
of bequest: 

"Whether the power of bequest should itself be subject to lim- 
itation is an ulterior question of great importance. Unlike in- 
heritance ah intestato, bequest is one of the attributes of property. 
The ownership of a thing cannot be looked upon as complete 
without the power of bestowing it, at death or during life, at the 
owner's pleasure; and all the reasons which recommend that 
private property should exist recommend pro tanto this extension 
of it. But property is only a means to an end, not itself the end. 



38 Man^ Money, and the Bible. 

Like an other proprietary rights, and even in a greater degree 
than most, tlie power of bequest may be so exercised as to con- 
flict with the permanent interests of the human race. It does 
so when, not content with bequeathing an estate to A, the testa- 
tor prescribes that on A's death it shall pass to his eldest son, 
and to that son's son, and so on forever. No doubt persons have 
occasionally exerted themselves more strenuously to acquire a 
fortune from a hope of founding a family in perpetuity; but the 
mischiefs to society of such perpetuities outweigh the value of 
this incentive to exertion; and the incentives in the case of 
those who have the opportunity of making large fortunes are 
strong enough without it. A similar abuse of the power of be- 
quest is committed when a person who does the meritorious act 
of leaving property for public uses attempts to prescribe the de- 
tails of its application in perpetuity; when, in founding a place 
of education, for instance, he dictates forever what doctrines shall 
be taught. It being impossible that any one should know what 
doctrines will be fit to be taught after he has been dead for cent- 
uries, the law ought not to give effect to such dispositions of 
property, unless subject to the perj^etual revision, after a cer- 
tain interval has elapsed, of a fitting authority. These are ob- 
vious limitations. (" Political Economy," Book II., Chap. II., | 4.) 

Mr. Mill's argument that it would be contrary to 
public policy and the interests of society for the right 
of bequest to be perpetual is good and true; but is it 
not just as true that it is contrary to the interests of 
society for it to be at all? Great, massive fortunes 
are being piled up and enjoyed by individuals in 
our country, and then handed over by bequest to those 
who h^d no hand in gathering them. And these fort- 
unes increase by their own inherit power of attrac- 
tion, and in larger bulk go on to another generation. 
These heirs have not even the poor part of abstinence 
to their credit in the increase of their estates ; for the 
income is simply more than they can spend, and year- 
ly surplus swells the capital, already too large. This 



Title Deriied by Inheritance and Bequest, 39 

• process can have no end so long as the unlimited right 
of bequest holds good. As a consequence, brainless, 
idle, and worthless people in many instances become 
the controllers of the destiny of vast numbers of our 
population, often crusliing worthy laborers to obtain 
means to gratify tlieir vices. Hence we have the same 
argument — the welfare of the body politic — for doing 
away entirely with the right of bequest that we have 
for limiting it. 

Then to make a man's control end at the same time 
that nature has stepped in and taken it out of his 
hands is certainly the most logical time to terminate 
it. If his control goes beyond this dead line fixed in 
nature, then it goes on forever; and any interference 
is an injustice to a helpless dead man. 

Reasoning, then, upon the natural basis laid down 
by the political economists, we conclude that there is 
good title to property derived by inheritance from 
parents to a limited amount (or by parents from chil- 
dren); but not otherwise. But title by bequest is 
worthless. 



CHAPTEE III. 

An Investigation of Titles Derived from Sharp 
Practices, Combines, Stock-watering, Trusts, 
etc. — Conclusions from Premises. 

A MAN has the exclusive right to what he has 
made or has derived by purchase from the 
maker. No one can take this property from him 
without giving an equivalent, and have any title to it, 
or be able to give any one else a title to it. 

We can very readily see that one man of strong 
muscle has no right to force a weaker man to surren- 
der his possessions to him. This is robbery, and rob- 
bery is one of the greatest of crimes. Nor does it 
change the character of the act if a weak man, by the 
aid of a fire-arm, intimidates a strong man and obtains 
his possessions. It is still robbery. Does it change 
the character of the act if a man of strong intellect 
outwits and befools a man of less mental power, and 
in that way obtains his possessions? Has the man 
any better right to use his mental superiority to over- 
reach his neighbor than his muscular superiority to 
coerce him? None at all. 

I do not mean that a man has no right to receive 
wages for mental work as well as for physical labor, 
but he must give an equivalent in mental work for 
the wages he receives. It may be instruction, help in 
business difficulty, mere entertainment, or he may in- 
vent some process or machine of value. He has a 
right to the results of the valuable thinking he has 
(40) 



Titles Derived from iSJiarjj Praetlces, etc. 41 

given to men. So, too, lie lias, as a tradesman or mid- 
dle man of any character, a right to a reward for all 
the valuable work which he performs, and even for 
his skill in striking the public taste. But a man 
must give something for what he gets, to individuals 
or to the body politic. 

AVherever, however, ho renders no equivalent, but 
by some sort of scheming obtains wealth for himself 
from an individual, or from the public at large, he has 
no title in equity to that wealth, and he is incapable 
of transferring it with an equitable title. Such 
wealth belongs exactly to the category of our stolen 
chair. The title is tainted by fraud, and it can never 
be perfected by transfer. 

This cuts off from good title all property obtained 
by corners on necessities, by stock-watering schemes, 
by trusts and combines, by gambling in margins, and 
all those ways which the fertile intellect of man has 
devised for getting something for nothing. Property 
so obtained does not belong by right to those who 
hold it, but the title has in reality never passed from 
those who were cheated out of it. 

This is of course true of the more palpable frauds 
■ — such as lotteries, dishonest banks, malfeasances, 
and betrayals of trusts, and hundreds of adroit ways 
of stealing, which, though the public conscience may 
not condemn as forcibly as it does sneaking theft, 
yet they convey no better title than downright steal- 
ing. 

Let us see how far these principles haA'-e carried us. 
You see w^e started from a basis which commends it- 
self to common sense, and which has the approval of 
the foremost among political economists; and the 



42 MaHj Money, and the Bible. 

reasoning will bear tlie tests of logic. Our conclu- 
sions, therefore, are all the more startling. 

We have invalidated the title to all land. This in- 
cludes all mining property, all timber, and all water 
power and wharfage property. It also includes all of 
the general mass of wealth which is the result of the 
past rents on land, to which the landlords, having no 
right, could get and give no real title. We have in- 
validated all individual title to the wealth accumulated 
by past generations, except that small part of their 
parents' estates to which children have a legitimate 
claim. Put these two things together — the invalida- 
tion of title to land and to i:)roperty derived from in- 
heritance and bequest — and we have the mass of real 
estate, including both land and improvements, among 
the things to which the individual can have no right. 
This is especially true in old countries, where the 
great part of the buildings were erected long ago. 
Then come in the deductions of the present chapter, 
sweeping away a large per cent, of the titles by which 
stocks, bonds, and personal property generally are 
held. 

Now revert to the principle that transfer cannot 
cure a bad title, and try to calculate how much of the 
general mass of wealth about us has been at some 
time tainted by one or the other of these principles 
wdiich have been adduced. Who can say that he has 
a clear title to any thing which he has not actually 
made himself? What wonder that there are men 
who believe that private property is public robbery? 
What wonder that there are those who believe not 
only in the logic which we have here employed, but 
believe with the force and zeal of fanatics in the con- 



Titles Derived from Sharp Practices, etc, 43 

elusions to which this reason iDg leads? Socialism 
has the same basis as received political economy; its 
conclusions are logical, are irrefragible, so far as they 
attack the title to the mass of property. Strip the 
writers of these strange and revolutionary doctrines, 
of their fiery rhetoric, of their intense hatred of 
Christianity, of their bombast and fustian, and you 
have about the same conclusions set forth in this and 
the two preceding chapters. 

There is nothing left for us, then, but to go over to 
them, revolutionary and destructive of all peace and 
prosperity and all progress as tliey seem to us; or to 
find some other basis for title to property than that 
which political economy has thus far recognized. If 
the right to property is resting upon an injustice, 
then private property is sooner or later doomed. 



CHAPTEE lY. 

The Absolute Title to Property Is in God — 
Man Derives His Title from God. 

a^HE principles of political economy, pressed to 
- their legitimate conclusions, teacli, as we have 
seen, that man has no absolute or exclusive right to 
any property which has not been earned by himself, 
or given to him by some living one having a clear ti- 
tle, or derived by inheritance from the estate of his 
parents. This teachiiig would destroy most of the 
large fortunes, and even the greater part of the small 
fortunes of our day. To put it in practice would 
amount to revolution. But if the teaching is founded 
in truth, no matter how we may fight against it, 
it must eventually be put in practice. This is a de- 
nial of the absolute right to most property as being 
in man; and such a denial I hold myself ready to 
maintain, either by the principles of political econo- 
my or of revelation. Does this sound revolutionary? 
Revolutionary as this appears, with this thought in 
another form all Christians are familiar. The book 
to which we look for our light has always declared: 
*' The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof; the 
world, and they that dwell therein" (Ps. xxiv. 1); 
"For all the earth is mine" (Ex. xix. 5); "Whatso- 
ever is under the whole heaven is mine " (Job xli. 11); 
*' For the world is mine, and the fullness thereof " (Ps. 
1. 12). This truth is quoted in the New Testament, 
in 1 Corinthians x. 26: "For the earth is the Lord's, 
and the fullness thereof." 
(44) 



The Absolute Title to PropeMy Is in God. 45 

The very basis, then, of Biblical economics is thje 
truth: God is the absolute owner of the world, and of 
any particular piece of ])roperty in it. Now it is not re- 
markable, if revelation be true, that absolute owner- 
ship, which belongs to God, cannot be proved to in- 
here in man. Any given thing cannot belong abso- 
lutely to God and to man also. That the voice of pure 
reasoning, working from largely an atheistic stand- 
point, and the voice of that book which Christendom 
regards as the voice of God should unite in the state- 
ment that property does not belong to individual man 
is certainly remarkable. The Bible explains why it 
does not belong to man: because it does belong to 
God. The Bible goes farther than these principles 
of political economy can be pressed, and claims that 
man himself belongs to God; hence there is in the Bi- 
ble no difference between the wealth man makes him- 
self and the rest of property. Man belonging to God, 
what he makes belongs to him, just on the same basis 
with land and all values. 

Now if the title to property rest in God, it can only 
pass to another by his consent; and any one receiving 
such title must take it with the limitations put upon 
it by God, the original owner. These limitations we 
learn from the Bible, his revealed will. There is no 
point where it is more clearly revealed than in Luke 
xvi. 1-12: "And he said alsonnto his disciples. There 
was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the 
same was accused unto him that he had wasted his 
goods. And he called him, and said nnto him, How 
is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy 
stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward. 
Then the steward said within himself, What shall I 



46 Man, Money, and the Bible. 

do? for my lord taketli away from me the steward- 
ship: 1 cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. I am re- 
solved wh-at to do, that, when I am put out of the stew- 
ardship, they may receive me into their houses. So 
he called every one of his Lord's debtors unto him, 
and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my 
lord? And he said, A hundred measures of oil. And 
he said unto him. Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, 
and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how 
much owest thou? And he said, A hundred measures 
of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and 
write fourscore. And the lord commended the un- 
just steward, because he had done wisely: for the 
children of this world are in their generation wiser 
than the children of light. And I say unto you, 
Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unright- 
eousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you 
into everlasting habitations. He that is faithful in 
that which is least is faithful also in much: and he 
that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If 
therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous 
mammon, who will commit to your trust the true 
riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that 
which is another man's, who shall give you that which 
is your own ? " 

In this startling parable earthly wealth is but the 
shadow of true riches; and, such as it is, it is not ours, 
but another man's — that is, God's; and our possession 
of the true riches is dependent upon our faithfulness 
in that which is given us here in trust. Our wealth, 
then, is not ours to splurge with, to waste in useless 
extravagance, to use simply as an instrument in the 
acquisition of more, or to accumulate for our children. 



Tlie Absolute Title to Property Is in God. 47 

It is a solemn trust, which we hold for the common 
good. Humanity has an interest in all the posses- 
sions of wealth, and it is the dim consciousness that 
the wealthy classes are not doing the fair thing 
which is at the bottom of all the trouble of our 
day. 

A man's title to his property is good as against an- 
other man. No other man can rightly claim an in- 
terest in it, nor can any other determine for him what 
he must do with it. God has intrusted it to that man, 
has given him the right over it as against all other 
men; but has clearly revealed that it is intrusted to 
him for the good of the human family, and not simply 
for his own pleasure. It is for him to determine how 
best to execute his trust; but he dare not ignore it, 
unless he is willing to rebel against God and wrong 
man. The very moment that he determines to disre- 
gard these claims, and make his wealth subservient to 
his own ease and comfort, he is in danger of the sen- 
tence: "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be re- 
quired of thee." By recognizing these facts, we may 
so use ''unrighteous mammon" as by it to make friends 
for ns of God, angels, and good men. And these, when 
earthly wealth shall have passed away, shall "receive 
us into everlasting habitations." 

This doctrine of stewardship appears also as dis- 
tinctly set forth in the parable of the talents. Peter 
clearly teaches it in the following: "As every man 
hath received the gift, even so minister the same one 
to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of 
God." (IPet. iv.lO.) 

The teaching of these passages, suj^ported by the 
whole tenor of the Scriptures, is: 



48 Man^ Money, and the Bible. 

1. Absolute ownership rests in God alone to all 
property. 

2. Man is simply God's steward, set each over a 
certain part of this vast estate, a tenant at his will. 

3. The steward is not to manage this property for 
his own pleasure, but for God's glory and the good of 
the race of men. 

4. God in the judgment wdll hold each man to a 
strict account for the faithful performance of this 
stewardship. 

That this stewardship is to be administered for the 
race of men is i3roved by 1 Peter iv. 10, and by Christ's 
own declaration: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto 
one of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me;" 
"Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of 
these, ye did it not to me." 

Man, then, is identified with God; and the proper 
treatment of man is recognized as the right use of 
our stewardship. Here we find another striking 
agreement between the position of socialists and the 
deliverances of God's word. The socialist declares 
the solidarity of the human race, and that all things 
belong to it, and not to individuals. The Bible im- 
plies such a solidarity — in fact, the great doctrines of 
the fall of man and his redemption rest upon this 
basis — and while it puts all right to property in God 
himself, and declares that God intrusts it to individ- 
uals, yet he requires the individual to administer it 
for the good of the race. 

The right of the individual to property which Lias 
come into his hands justly is good as against all in- 
dividuals. God has given it to him, and no other in- 
dividual has any right to interfere with this owner- 



The Absolute Title to Property Is in God, 49 

ship. But he has no title as against God nor has he 
any as against the race. The whole idea of "eminent 
domain " rests on the truth that the individual's title 
to property must give way to the need of the race. 
But this cannot be set up as showing a distinction 
between landed property and other forms of wealth; 
for the laws of all kinds that relate to nuisances, hy- 
gienic regulations, and quarantine rest upon the same 
basis. So all forms of tax recognize the race, as rep- 
resented by government, as having an interest in all 
forms of property. These old and fixed principles 
of government, when traced to their ultimate ground, 
recognize the fact that the individual's right to prop- 
erty is null as against the race. 
4 



CHAPTEK Y. 

The Method of the Transfer of Property to 
THE Individual Man, and the Character of Ti- 
tle He Eeceives. 

WE have seen that the position of the Bible is 
that the absolute title to property rests in God. 
We have seen, also, that God does not pass this abso- 
lute title to man, but puts man in possession of prop- 
erty as steward, during his life. Man is not owner, 
but manager. We shall now discuss the manner in 
which this modified title to property passes into the 
hands of any man. In God's words to Adam, and 
afterward to Noah, he gave this world to man as a 
race. But the race cannot act as a unit; it, in the 
present state of things, cannot exercise the powers of 
proprietor. Hence God puts property in the hands 
of individuals as trustees for the race, holding them 
to strict account for their faithfulness to the trust. 
All who are familiar with the Bible know that God 
thus gave land to man. 

We find him giving a part of the earth to Abraham 
and his seed. We find him afterward dividing this 
national inheritance out to the families and individu- 
als that compose the nation. He recognizes the title 
to land as inhering in the individual, though that in- 
dividual is a female. 

God also in his word recognizes the right to per- 
sonal property. He bestowed great riches upon 
Abraham and Job and others, consisting for the most 
(50) 



Transfer of Property and Character of Title. 51 

part of flocks o£ cattle and sheep; and he recognized 
their proprietorship. He established laws for the 
punishment of any who invaded the rights of a pro- 
prietor. He forbids man even to covet — strongly to 
desire — any thing which is his neighbor's. Two of 
the commandments of the decalogue are based upon 
the recognition of the right of exclusive possession 
of property by man: "Thou shalt not steal;" "thou 
shalt not covet." 

The example of the Jerusalem Church is generally 
appealed to by all religious communists as showing 
that we ought not to own any thing as individuals. 
Yet it is in the very midst of the history of this no- 
ble example of unselfishness, which was demanded by 
the circumstances, that I find the most distinct recog- 
nition that this community of goods was not compul- 
sory; and especially of the right of the individual 
both to landed and personal property. Let us exam- 
ine part of this history: "But a certain man named 
Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, 
and kept back part of the price, his wife also being 
privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at 
the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath 
Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to 
keep back part of the price of the land? While it re- 
mained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, 
was it not in thine own power? why hast thou con- 
ceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied 
unto men, but unto God." 

"While it [the land] remained, was it not thine 
own ? " Here is the strongest possible recognition of 
the right to property in land, right in the midst of 
the account of the community of property adopted 



52 Man, Money, and the Bible, 

by tliis Cliurcli, and in tlie New Testament, God's last 
revealed will to man. "After it was sold, was it not 
in thine own power? " Here is a recognition, equally- 
strong, of the purchase money, personal property, in 
the hands of Ananias as his own, which he might 
have retained. 

The whole Bible recognizes proprietorship on the 
part of an individual. We wish now to investigate 
the question. How does he become proprietor of any 
given property? 

A man has reached maturity. His obligations to 
his father have been canceled. He faces life for him- 
self. He has as yet no property, but he has strong 
muscles and a sound mind. What does nature say to 
such a one? " Work or starve." What does political 
economy say? She indorses the statement of nature. 
What does the Bible say? "If any man would not 
work, neither should he eat." In this statement the 
three are agreed. There is no room for dispute. Our 
man must work, or he violates the law of his being and 
the revealed will of his Maker. 

God's word comes to him positively and emphatic- 
ally, saying: " We command and exhort by our Lord 
Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and 
eat their own bread; " bread which has become one's 
own because he has earned it by hard work. This 
settles the question of his joining a noisy, beer-drink- 
ing society, and agitating the subject of getting his 
living by forcing some one else to divide his posses- 
sions with him. He must work. 

The very moment he accepts this law, and begins 
honest labor, God's Word says of him, "The laborer 
is worthy of his hire; " and it denounces the man who 



Transfer of Property and Character of Title. 53 

does not pay him his wages and the man who pays 
insufficient wages — even the one who does not pay 
promptly. The property which he makes by his la- 
bor, or the wages he earns, the Bible recognizes as 
his own. 

If day by day he saves a part of his daily wages, 
until it amounts to a large property, it is still his. 
He has earned it by the sweat of his brow. The 
Scriptures defend his title against every comer ; but 
they recognize even this title as a limited one; the 
absolute title is still in God. That never passes from 
him. This earning by honest labor, however, gives 
the best title to the individual to manage for God and 
humanity this much of the sum of things. 

This work that earns wages is -not, from a script- 
ural point of view, simply manual labor. The points 
where the statement is made in the New Testament, 
" The laborer is worthy of his hire " (Matt. x. 10, Luke 
X. 7, 1 Tim. V. 18), are where the right of a minister 
of Christ to a support is laid down. Here spiritual 
work, the farthest remove from manual labor, is made 
the basis for material wages; and this is put into a 
broad generalization precisely because it was designed 
to state a truth applicable to all earnest workers, in- 
cluding all brain workers. 

Honest work, then, is the first and chief way that 
God places property in the hands of an individual; 
but we may recognize all other legal ways of acquisi- 
tion — by gift, inheritance, bequest, interest, the mo- 
nox^oly of discovery, etc. — as in accord with the divine 
will; for we have the statement of his word: "For 
there is no power but of God: the powers that be are 
ordained of God." This statement was made during 



54 Man, Moiieij, and the Bible, 

the reign of Nero, and shows that government is of 
God, even when government is at its worst. The man 
who administers it may be -wicked; the laws them- 
selves may not be just; but for that time and that 
people they are the best that can be done; and obe- 
dience to law, even at its worst, is a thousand times 
better than lawlessness. The enactments of man, 
acting with proper authority, become the enactments 
of God. 

Hence that property which has come to a man in 
our day as the result of the action of our laws, as at 
present constituted, may be accepted as rightly his. 
This of course does not refer to property accumulated 
by shirking the law, or evading it, or slipping through 
its interstices. To- such there is only the right of a 
thief to goods in his possession. Nor does this mean 
that present laws are right, and ought not to be 
changed by proper authority ; but only that while they 
are law they should be respected as such ; and as the 
disadvantage of them presses upon all, so any advan- 
tage they really bring to any one may be rightly ac- 
cepted. The law of compensation will thus work to 
alleviate the inequalities of the system. 

We then conclude that any property which has been 
acquired honestly and legally may be regarded as 
having been transferred to a man by the divine owner 
of it, with such limited title as he bestows and subject 
to such conditions as he affixes to it. If a man ac- 
cepts the authority of the Bible as the revealed will 
of God, he is driven irresistibly to this doctrine about 
property. It is all God's, and he commits portions of 
it to individuals in these several ways, simply in trust 
for the good of the race. 



Transfer of Properti) and Character of Title, 55 

Does a man deny the very existence of God, and 
hence the authority of the Bible? If his position be 
true, then the socialist is right; man then has no 
right to any thing which he has not personally earned 
by his own labor. The derivation of title from God, 
or from personal labor, are the only tenable positions. 
The latter position, as we have seen, annuls the title 
to nine-tentlis of the property now held by individu- 
als. If a man takes the only other tenable hypothe- 
sis, and claims property under God, then he must be 
true to his hypothesis not only as a theory perfecting 
his title as against contestants, but he must put that 
theory in practice by holding his property in accord- 
ance with the character of the title he claims to have 
obtained. We will restate the character of that title. 
God. puts property in the hands of a man as his agent 
and trustee, to be used to forward his cause, which is 
identical with the cause of humanity, and to be con- 
trolled by principles which he has laid down for that 
agent's guidance. 

We have seen how property is put in the hands of 
an individual, and the character of title he gets. It 
remains for us to try to find the principles which are 
laid down in God's revealed will for the control of 
this property. To this we will devote Part II. 



PART II. 

BIBLICAL ECONOMICS PROPER. 

(57) 



CHAPTEE I. 

Man Must Eecognize His Stewardship.* 

IF a man is a trustee holding his property from 
God as principal in trust for humanity, then the 
very first thing necessary in the management is the 
recognition of this trusteeship. Though we have al- 
ready spoken considerable upon this subject in treat- 
ing of the nature of man's title, yet, both on account 
of its importance and its relation to the system, it be- 
comes necessary to put it at the head of the princi- 
ples which God has revealed as required in the man- 
agement of the earthly estate committed to us. 

Principle I. — Whatever ive possess ice hold not abso- 
lutely, but as stewai^ds of God, and in trust for the hu- 
man race. 

This principle is diffused throughout the gospel 
rather than packed into quotable formula. The feel- 
ing of the poor that they are cheated out of their 
rights, that they are laboring under burdens and dif- 
ficulties that their stronger fellows ought to in some 
way lighten is founded in truth, however much of er- 
ror may be mixed up in the utterance that gives vent 
to it. Nor while certain classes, the great majority 
of the very rich, use their vast possessions as abso- 
lutely their own, not only to enjoy and to splurge on, 
but as an instrument of power to force the public to 
add to their accumulations, can we expect this dis- 
content to assuage? It will grow with that which 
feeds it. Wealth must recognize its obligations; or, 

\59) 



60 Man, Money, and the Bible, 

violating the very conditions upon whicli it is bo- 
stowed, it must expect, sooner or later, to pay the 
penalty of violated law. 

Fortunately, the tich are not all careless of their 
trust.* The noble gifts to education, to eleemosynary 
institutions, and to Christian enterprises show that 
many of them are using their wealth in the right 
w^ay. The splendid response of Christendom to every 
case of remarkable affliction by flood or fire or pesti- 
lence is as glorious an exhibition of noble action in 
the present as it is an exhibition of a state of feeling 
from which we may hope for better things in the 
future. Our charitable institutions supported by the 
State, and our whole system of public education, both 
primary and collegiate, show the wide-spread accept- 
►ance of this principle. 

An editorial in the Century for December, 1885, in 
"Topics of the Times," under the head, "Mercantil- 
ism Transfigured," shows the same thing, and that, 
too, in the highest intellectual ranks. What is here 
said of trade is equally true of all methods of money- 
getting. I give the article entire: 

"In that most significant speech made two years 
ago by President "White, of Cornell, to his classmates 
at Yale, and entitled, ' The Message of the Nineteenth 
Century to the Twentieth,' the influence on our na- 
tional life of what the orator aptly describes as * mer- 
cantilism ' is most cogently set forth. This *combina- 
tion of the industrial spirit with the trade spirit' has 
been, as he shows, the dominant element in our 
American civilization. Under its sway there has 
been a marvelous development of the physical re- 
sources of the country, but along with this a too evi- 



Man Must Becognize His Stewardship, 61 

dent decline of the higher forces. The genuine polit- 
ical spirit, the devotion to the public service which 
leads the citizen to give time and thought to the af- 
fairs of the city or State, has been gradually dying 
out. Men are so consumed with business cares that 
they find little time or strength for public service. 
In education and in the cultivation of pure science 
progress has been made, no doubt; but how little 
compared with tlie enormous increase of the national 
wealth! In literature and art the movement, as he 
views it, is retrograde, and a good portion of our fore- 
most pulpits are supjjlied by importations from the 
Old World. Mercantilism is drawing into its vortex 
the intellectual strength of the nation. The energies 
of its most promising young men are enlisted in the 
pursuit of wealth. Such is the complaint of his own 
generation made by a man who is by nature an opti- 
mist, but who is a careful student of history and a 
close observer of the manners of his times. 'I be- 
lieve,' he declares, 'that we shall find that, so far 
from relatively diminishing, it [mercantilism] is rel- 
atively increasing; that, so far from begetting better 
elements of civilization, it is now beginning to stifle 
them; that it is now beginning to show itself a des- 
potic element, crushing other elements of civilization 
which are to add any thing to the earth's history; 
that, in fact (and I say it in all soberness), mercantil- 
ism in great cities and small towns, in society and in 
tlie individual, is becoming a disease, certainly fever- 
ish, possibly cancerous.' To those who are not too 
busy with money-making to think much about it, this 
judgment of existing social conditions will appear to 
be sane and moderate. 



62 Man^ Moneij^ and tlie Bihle. 

"But tliese words of faithful warning and reproof 
are not words of despair. The orator expects tliat 
these ruinous tendencies will be checked; that other 
forces will be evoked to counteract mercantilism and 
to prevent the * weakening, decline, and sterility,' 
toward which it is hurrying the nation. His own 
prediction of the quarter from which deliverance will 
come we shall not here repeat, because we desire to 
make record of a most hopeful answer to the question 
which he raises, contained in another speech no less 
significant — an address of Mr. Franklin Mac Veagh, of 
Chicago, at a dinner given by the Commercial Club 
of Boston to its guests from the three chief cities of 
the West. 

" The manner of this speech, as well as the matter of 
it, commend it to all lovers of good literature. After- 
dinner oratory is not often so graceful. Its delicate 
wit, its bright allusions, and its deftly turned sentences 
exhibit a mind of fine grain and careful culture. It 
would be hard to find a professional talker, East or 
West, who could put his thoughts into a better form. 
Evidently here is one man who, though he proclaims 
himself a trader, has contrived to extract some sweet- 
ness from the barren pastures of mercantilism. 

"But the art of the performance does not hide its 
purpose. The business man's responsibility to soci- 
ety is the serious theme on which he finally lights, 
and the view which he takes o,f the matter leaves 
nothing to be desired by patriot or philanthropist. 
The estimate of the trader's function here laid down, 
if it were accepted by all business men, or even by 
the better part of them, would speedily correct those 
evil tendencies of which Mr. White has warned us. 



Mem Must Recognize His Stewardship, 63 

The Cliicago trader protests, indeed, against the 
undue disparagement of the mercantile vocation. 
* Trade,' he says, ' is a much abused benefactor. It 
would not do to take seriously the foppish views of 
trade held by the idle end of society. To them noth- 
ing is dignified but idleness. This mediaeval survival 
of prejudice is chiefly cherished by the useless part of 
the nobility and their admirers in America, by that 
part of the noblesse whom the English wit must have 
had in mind when he made his classification of the 
"men of ability and the men of nobility." ' 

"The dignity of any calling depends, first, upon its 
aims; secondly, on the qualities developed in its pur- 
suit. 'Let us frankly admit,' this orator goes on to 
say, *that the aims of trade have not been all that 
they might have been. But what, on the other hand, 
shall we not claim for those high qualities of mind 
and character, for the untiring enterprise, the wise 
judgment, and the undaunted courage that from the 
very beginning of history have made commerce the 
bearer of civilization from every center to every cir- 
cumference; that made her the origin of cosmopoli- 
tan life, the solvent of the antagonisms of custom, the 
necessary foundation for every enlargement of the 
life of nations? And shall we not now claim that the 
ideals, the aims of trade are widening and deepening? 
Is it not true that men more and more are associating 
with the dream of wealth a sense of public responsi- 
bility and an aspiration for public usefulness? And 
is it not true that the good works of the nation large- 
ly depend upon the intelligent sympathy and co-op- 
eration of business men?' " 

If these last questions can be confidently .answered 



64 Man^ Money ^ and the Bible. 

in the affirmative, the future of this nation is secured. 
And it is certainly a good sign that from one of our 
chief centers of business activity should come so full 
and strong a statement of a doctrine that offers a so- 
lution of the gravest questions now before us. We 
quote in full the next two paragraphs of this note- 
worthy speech: 

" It is a great temptation, Mr. Chairman, now that 
I have gotten so far on the way, to go ahead and 
claim that we men of affairs are altogether perfect. 
But a reluctant honesty obliges me to confess that 
before we shall be quite all that we might be to the 
world, wealth must be sought still more generally for 
its good uses. Of course men must be left free to ac- 
cumulate property for their own purposes. A form 
of society which should prevent the free accumula- 
tion and possession of property would simply stagnate 
progress, and is impossible. But, on the other hand, 
it is not difficult to believe that the avenues to ex- 
ceptional wealth can only be held by the few, as at 
present, through the intervention of important con- 
cessions to that spirit of democracy which is entering 
upon a new stage of its mastery of the world ; for democ- 
racy, after all, is not more a governmental revolution 
than it is a social revolution. The greatest conces- 
sion, it seems to me, that will be demanded of, wealth 
by democracy — a concession that will answer the 
demands of progress as well — will be frank acknowl- 
edgment of the moral trusteeship, of a moral obliga- 
tion to freely use surplus wealth for the general good. 

" Happy the necessity, beneficent the tyranny that 
will thus rule trade and wealth to their own glorious 
enfranchisement. When such an acknowledgment 



Man Must Recognize His Steivarchhip. 65 

is generally made, wealth and trade shall be lifted up 
to the level of the highest and the best. Once in- 
spire trade with such an aim, free wealth from its 
spiritual bondage through this great ideal, give to all 
the pursuits of business such a right royal sanc- 
tion that they shall take rank and dignity with all 
the work that is done by humanity in its best estate, 
with poetry, with every form of literature, with every 
form of art, with statesmanship, w4th apostleship; and 
Croesus, hugging his millions to his bosom as his own, 
in the narrow sense of ownership, rejecting the idea 
of trusteeship, will be overwhelmed in the rush of 
the current of modern ideas. Croesus accepting the 
idea of trusteeship) will be the new force in civiliza- 
tion for which the world is waiting. 

" We ask whether there be not condensed into 
these two paragraphs from the speech of the Chicago 
* trader' more solid statesmanship, more true insight 
into existing social conditions, a wiser solution of the 
greatest question of our time, than was contained in all 
the stump speeches of the last presidential campaign. 
The prediction here uttered respecting the challenge 
which a militant democracy will soon be flinging 
at the feet of a too confident plutocracy is one that 
may well be heeded. And the answer that Mr. Mac 
Veagh proposes to make is the right answer. Such 
a recognition of moral trusteeship as he urges will 
pluck the sting from socialism, and save to the world 
the fruits of enterprise. Mercantilism, transfigured 
through these higher aims, will cease to be the peril 
t)f the State, and become its protection and defense." 

We have here at once the opinion of a great educa- 
tor on the evils growing out of the present methods 
5 



66 Man, Monetj, and the Bible, 

of getting and holding riches, and we have the opin- 
ion of an eminent man in literature agreeing with a 
practical business man, each looking at tilings from 
their own stand-point; and the opinion so eloquently 
net forth is simply a noble call for the recognition of 
the principle here presented — the trusteeship of man. 
And they rightly regard the recognition of tliis first 
principle laid down by Christ as a long step in the 
direction of solving all the difficulties and problems 
that now perplex our civilization. In fact, the editor 
of the Century thinks the living up to this one princi- 
ple would bring perfect peace to a world sadly troub- 
led. Is it not remarkable that the opinions of the 
very rijjest scholarship and of experienced trade, look- 
ing for a solution of our present industrial difficul- 
ties, should coincide with the principle announced by 
the Galilean peasant nineteen centuries ago? 

In the exercise of this trust it is not demanded 
that a man forget himself entirely. As the accumu- 
lator of wealth he has a kind of first right to its ben- 
efits. *'Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth 
out the corn " is quoted as a general principle by 
Paul in an argument proving that the minister of 
the gospel has a right to share in the good he brings 
to the world. It is still more applicable to the 
wealth-getter. He has a right to spend upon him- 
self so much of his wealth as is really necessary for 
his own well-being — physically, mentally, socially, 
morally, and spiritually. 

Then a man's family are more directly the ones for 
whom he is responsible. " If any provide not for 
his own, and specially for those of his own house, 
he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an in- 



Man Must Recognize His Stewardship. 67 

fidel." It is after these immediate claims are met 
that the claim of humanity at large comes to be a 
valid one. But the pressing character of the demand 
for help must enter into the determination of a given 
case. For instance, the necessity of a starving 
stranger would take precedence of some comparative- 
ly Unimportant want of a man's own child. 

In the very nature of the case the needs of the 
cause of Christ must have first claim upon his stew- 
ard, unless offset by great and pressing counter 
claims. Dr. J. D. Barbee well says in a sermon on 
Luke sixteenth chapter that a man is but the cashier 
in the Almighty's bank; and when God draws a check, 
he dares not dishonor it. After listening to this ser- 
mon one of the most consecrated laymen, a rich man 
who is God's child, remarked to the writer that the 
central idea of trusteeship was all right; "but," he 
asked, " who is to decide as to the genuineness of that 
check?" Here is wdiere many make a mistake. 
They imagine that it is the man who presents a claim 
upon another, whether in the name of the Church or 
of himself, who is to decide the character of the 
check. It is the man who is on the inside of the win- 
dow, and not, the one who is on the outside, on w^hom 
the responsibility rests. " To his own master he 
standeth or falleth." Let selfishness beware, howev- 
er, how it refuses to cash the check which its own 
conscience accepts, and how it " lies unto God." 

The full and joyous recognition of the fact by a 
man that he is but God's steward is, in large measure, 
the fulfillment of the first and great commandment: 
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." 



CHAPTER 11. 

Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself. 

HAYING now the correct conception of our rela- 
tion to our property, we are ready to further 
investigate the laws laid down in the Bible, directing 
in the control of wealth. The next great principle, 
and the chief one in the management of fiscal affairs, 
so far as they relate to our fellow-men, is the Second 
Commandment, which is like unto the first: 

Principle II. — "Thou shall love tlnj neighbor as thij- 
self." 

Of this great principle Paul makes the following 
exhaustive statement: "Love worketh no evil to his 
neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." 
Law here is used not, of course, in the sense of cere- 
monial or Mosaic law, nor in that of the imperfect 
enactments of human governments; but it is used in 
the sense of the ideal, the perfect requirements of 
God as to man's reciprocal duties, which have not 
yet been embodied in human statutes, and which are 
epitomized in the one word " love." Here is the key 
to all our difiiculties; here is the divine solution of 
the problems. There can be no more marked con- 
trast between the rich and the poor, nor no relation 
between the employee and the employer, which 
wrenches the right adjustment between them more 
violently awry than that between Philemon and 
Onesimus, the master and the slave of Roman days. 
But all the friction and the hardness is taken out of 
(68) 



Love Thij Kcighbor as Thijself. 69 

even this relation by this gracious law of love, which 
requires Philemon to receive his slave as " a brother 
beloved both in the flesh and in the Lord." 

The troubles with us do not grow out of our rela- 
tions to one another, nor mostly (though partly) out 
of our imperfect laws, but out of the spirit in which- 
we meet one another. 

The old and selfish maxims of political economy, 
which have done their own peculiar service to civil- 
ization, have also brought to fruitage in our day a 
bountiful crop of evil. Man is naturally selfish. 
That the law of love may be operative it is necessary 
that a great change be wrought in him. Political 
economy proposes to nurture man's innate selfishness, 
and to guide it wisely to its selfish aims. The Bible 
proposes to eliminate selfishness, and to supply its 
place with benevolence. Yet this benevolence is not 
to ignore or oppress self. We are to " love our neigh- 
bors as ourselves," not more than self; we are to love 
them as ourselves, not as we do a wife or a child or a 
personal friend. It puts their interests and our own 
in perfect equipoise. This is God's plan for remov- 
ing all friction. 

How far we are from accepting this wonderful 
plan is seen by a mere glance about us. Christian era 
as this is, it is pre-eminently the day of selfishness. 
I know all about our eleemosynary institutions, and 
our increased gifts and work for the Church. These 
show that the Spirit of Christ is not dead: they are 
hopeful signs. But I am speaking now of our mon- 
ey matters — pure business, as it is termed. Here 
selfishness reigns almost supreme. The principles of 
Christ are beautifying our homes, purifying our so- 



70 Man, Money, and the Bible. 

ciety, and ennobling our lives as a race; but we still 
allow the selfish maxims of an infidel political econ- 
omy to rule in matters of money-making. So true is 
this that in our day w^e find the enigma of a man 
grinding his employees by small wages to save money 
to give to benevolent enterprises. The one is busi- 
ness; the other is religion. The two are kept separate. 

All this the Bible demands shall be changed. Our 
dealings with one another must be on this basis of 
love. Surely we have outgrown the barbaric state 
wdiere every one looks upon his fellow as his natural 
enemy, and is watching him to prevent being over- 
reached; yet it is precisely this that the philosopher 
and the clown recommend — the one in truth-seeming 
formukef and the other in such homely proverbs as, 
" Every tub must stand on its own bottom." This is a 
state of active warfare between those who should be 
brothers. This is destructive, and not constructive. 
Mutual help growing out of mutual love is the con- 
structive principle in human society; and just so far 
as these have been allowed to rule has civilization been 
built, and no farther. " Love one another " is the only 
solvent that will break up the tendency in our na- 
tion to crystallize into hostile classes — the farmers ar- 
rayed against merchants, tradesmen against lawyers, 
and wage-workers against all the rest. But we will 
return to this subject under the third principle. 

I know of no place where the nature of selfishness 
and the eflaciency of the divine remedy for it have 
been so forcibly presented as by Mr. Harris in his 
wonderful book, "Mammon;" and I take pleasure in 
giving his eloquent words to the reader, as exactly 
voicing what I am trying to set forth: 



Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself. 71 

There is, be it observed, a wide difference between selfishness 
and legitimate self-love. The latter is a principle necessary to 
all sentient existence. In man it is the principle which impels 
him to preserve his own life and promote his own happiness. 
Love to God and our neighbor does not annihilate, but rather 
cherishes a regard to our own highest good. True piety gives 
this regard the right direction, and guides it to seek supreme 
happiness in God. It is the act or habit of a man w'ho so loves 
himself that he gives himself to God. Selfishness is fallen self- 
love. It is self-love in excess, blind to the existence and excel- 
lence of God, and seeking its happiness in inferior objects, by 
aiming to subdue them to its own purposes. 

Accordingly selfishness, as we have already intimated, is the 
prevailing, not to say universal, form of human depravity; ev- 
ery sin is bat a modification of it. What is avarice but selfish- 
ness grasping and hoarding? What is prodigality but selfish- 
ness decorating and indulging itself^ — a man sacrificing to him- 
self as his own god? What is sloth but that god asleej:), and re- 
fusing to attend to the loud calls of duty? What is idolatry 
but that god-enshrined man worshiping the reflection of his 
own image? Sensuality, and indeed all the sins of the flesh, 
are only selfishness setting itself above law and gratifying it- 
self at the expense of all restraint. And all the sins of the spir- 
it are only the same principle, impatient of contradiction, and 
refusing to acknowledge superiority or to bend to any will but 
its own. What is egotism but selfishness speaking? or crime, 
but selfishness, without its mask, in earnest and acting? or of- 
fensive war, but selfi.shness confederated, armed, and bent on 
aggrandizing itself by violence and blood? An offensive army 
is the selfishness of a nation embodied and moving to the at- 
tainment of its object over the wrecks of human happiness and 
life. "From whence come wars and fightings among you? 
Come they not hence even of your lusts? " And w^hat are all 
these irregular and passionate desires but that inordinate self- 
love which acknowledges no law and will be confined by no 
rules, that selfishness " which is the heart of depravity? " and 
wdiat but this has set the world at variance, and filled it with 
strife ? The first presumed sin of the angels that kept not their 
fii-st estate, as well as the first sin of man— w^hat was it but self- 
ishness insane; an irrational and mad attempt to pass the 



72 Man, Money y and the Bible, 

limits proper to the creature, to invade the throne, and to seize 
tlie right of the Deity? And were we to analyze the very last 
sin of which we ourselves are conscious, we should discover that 
selfishness, in one or the other of its thousand forms, was its 
parent. Thus, if love was the prevailing principle of the unfallen 
creation, it is equally certahi that selfishness is the reigning law 
of tlie world, ravaged and disorganized by sin. 

It must be obvious, then, that the great want of fallen man is 
a divine remedy for selfishness, the epidemic disease of our nat- 
ure. The expedient which should profess to remedy our condi- 
tion, and yet leave this want unprovided for, whatever its other 
recommendations might be, would be leaving the seat and core 
of our disease untouched. And it would be easy to show that 
in this radical defect consists the impotence of every system of 
false religion, and of every heterodox modification of the true 
religion, to restore our disordered nature to happiness and God. 
And equally easy is it to show that the gospel, evangelically in- 
terpreted, not only talves cognizance of this peculiar feature of 
our malady, but actually treats it as the very root of our deprav- 
ity, and addresses itself directly to the task of its destruction ; 
that, as a first efiect of sin was to produce selfishness, so the 
first effect of the gospel remedy is to destroy that evil, and to 
replace it with benevolence. 

It is the glory of the gospel that it was calculated and ar- 
ranged on the principle of restoring to the world the lost spirit 
of benevolence. To realize this enterprise of boundless mercy, 
Jehovah resolved on first presenting to mankind an unparal- 
leled exhibition of grace; an exhibition which, if it foiled to re- 
kindle extinguished love in the heart of man, should at least 
have the eff'ect of kindling anew the raptures of angels and ser- 
aphs around his throne. The ocean of divine love was stirred 
to its utmost depths. The entire Godhead was (if, with pro- 
found reverence it may be said) put into activity. The three 
glorious subsistencies in the divine essence moved toward our 
earth. Every attribute and distinction of the divine Nature 
was displayed : the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit embarked 
tlieir infinite treasures in the cause of human happiness. 

" God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth on liim should not perish, but have 
everlasting life." He could not give us more ; and the vast pro- 



Love Thij Keiyhbor as Thyself, 73 

pensions of his grace could not be satisfied by bestowing less. 
He would not leave it possible to be said that he could give us 
more; he resolved to pour out the whole treasury of heaven, to 
give us his all at once. " Herein is love; " love defying all com- 
putation; the very mention of which should surcharge our 
hearts with gratitude, give us an idea of infinity, and replace our 
selfishness with a sentiment of generous and difi'usive benevo- 
lence. 

Jesus Christ came into the world as the embodied love of 
God. He came and stood before the world with the hoarded 
love of eternity in his heart, offering to make us the heirs of 
all its wealth. He so unveiled and presented the character of 
God that every human being should feel that God can be "just 
and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." " He pleased 
not himself." He did nothing for himself; whatever he did 
was for the advantage of man. Selfishness stood abashed in his 
presence. "He went about doing good." He assumed our nat- 
ure expressly, that he might be able to suffer in our stead; for 
the distinct and deliberate object of pouring out his blood, and 
of making his soul an ofi'ering for sin. He planted a cross, and 
presented to the world a prodigy of mercy of which this is the 
only solution: that he "so loved us." "While we were yet sin- 
ners Christ died for us." He took our place in the universe, 
espoused our interest, opened his bosom, and welcomed to his 
heart the stroke which we had deserved. 

And in all he did, he thought of the world. He loved man 
as man; he came to be the life and light of the world; he came 
and stood as the center of attraction to a race of beings scattered 
and dissipated by the repulsive power of selfishness. He pro- 
posed by the power of the cross to "draw all men unto him." 
His heart had room for the whole race; and, opening his arms, 
he invited all to come unto him. The whole of his course was 
a history of pure and disinterested benevolence; one continued 
act of condescension; a vast and unbroken descent from the 
heights of heaven to the form of a servant, the life of an outcast, 
the death of a malefactor. His character is a study of goodness, 
a study for the universe; it is the conception of a being of infi- 
nite amiableness, seeking to engage and enamor the heart of a 
selfish world. 

The world having lost the original idea of goodness and sunk 



7^1 Man^ Money, and the Bible. 

into a state of universal selfishness, his cliaracter was calculated 
and formed on the principle of a laborious endeavor to recall 
tlie departed spirit of benevolence, and baptize it afresh in tiie 
element of love. 

The office of the Holy Spirit is appointed and concurs to the 
same end. The world could not be surprised out of its selfishness 
and charmed into benevolence by the mere spectacle even of di- 
vine love. That love can be understood only by sympatiiy ; but 
for this, sin had disqualified us. According to the economy of 
grace, therefore, the exhibition of that love in God is to be made 
the means of producing love in us; the glorious spectacle of love 
as beheld in God is to be turned into a living principle in us. For 
this end, the holy, unconfined, and infinite Spirit came down. 
His emblem is the wind; he came like a rushing, mighty wind; 
came with a fullness and a power, as if he sought to fill every 
heart, to replenish the Church, to be the soul of the world, to 
encircle the earth with an atmosphere of grace as real and as 
uuiversal as the elemental air which encompasses and circu- 
lates around the globe itself, that whoever inhaled it might 
have eternal life. 

In the prosecution of his office he was to take of the things 
of Christ, and show them unto men. Heaven stooping to earth; 
God becoming man, dying upon the cross; infinite benevolence 
pouring out all its treasures for human happiness — these were 
the things which he was to reveal, the softening and subduing 
elements with which he was to approach and enter the human 
heart. In his hands these truths were to become spirit and 
lif3. From the moment they were felt, men were to be con- 
scious of a change in their relation both to God and to each 
other. A view of the great love wherewith he had loved them 
was to fill their minds with the grand and overpowering senti- 
ment" of benevolence which should melt their obduracy, cause 
them to glow with gratitude, and bind them fast to himself in 
the strongest bands of love. That love, with all the communi- 
cativeness of fire, was to extend to their fellow-men. Every 
weapon of revenge was to fall from their hands; every epithet of 
anger was to die upon their lips; and where, before, they saw 
nothing but foes they were henceforth to behold most noble 
objects of afi"ection, immortal being.^, whom it would be happi- 
ness to love and Godlike to bless. The love of Christ would 



Love Tlnj Neiyhhor as TJiyself. 75 

constrain tliem; glowing and circulating in their spiritual sys- 
tem, like the life-blood in their hearts, it would impel them to 
be active for his glory. Having communed with the heart of 
infinite Love, they were to go forth and mingle with their race, 
filled with a benevolence like that which brought their Lord 
from heaven. Placing themselves at his disi)Osal, they were to 
find that they were no longer detached from the species, but re- 
fctored and i elated to all around; the sworn and appointed 
agents of happiness to the world 

•Thus tiie Christian Church, like the leaven hid in the meal, 
was to pervade and asshnilate the entire mass of humanity. At 
first it would resemble an imperlum in imperio, a dominion of 
love flourishing amidst arid wastes of selfishness; but, extend- 
ing on all sides its peaceful conquests, it would be seen trans- 
forming and encompassing the world. Combining and conse- 
crating all the elements of moral power, it would move only to 
conquer, and conquer only to increase the means of conquest. 
It would behold its foes converted into friend.s; then, assigning 
to each an appropriate station of duty, would bid him forthwith 
go and try upon others the jiower of that principle which had 
subdued his own opposition: the omnipotent power of love. 
Thus thawing, and turning into its own substance the icy self- 
ishness of humanity, the great principle of benevolence would 
flow through the world with all the majesty of a river, widen- 
ing and deepening at every point of its progress by the accession 
of a thousand streams, till it covered the earth as the waters 
cover the sea. They who, under the reign of selfishness, had 
sought to contract the circle of happine-s around them till they 
had reduced it to their own little center, under the benign and 
expansive influence of the gospel, would not only seek to en- 
large that circle to embrace the world, but to multiply and dif- 
fuse themselves in happiness to its utmost circumference. Feel- 
ing that good is indivisible, that to be enjoyed in perfection by 
one, it must be shared and possessed by all, they would labor till 
all the race were blended in a family compact and were par- 
taking together the rich blessings of salvation; till, by their in- 
strumentality, the hand of Christ had carried a golden chain of 
love around the world, binding the whole together, and all to 
the throne of God. 

It is clear, then, that the entire economy of salvation is «on- 



76 Mtin, Moneijj and the Bible. 

structed on the principle of restoring to the world the lost spir- 
it of love. This is its boast and glory. Its advent was an era in 
the universe. It was bringing to a trial the relative strength of 
love and hatred — the darling princii^le of heaven, and the great 
principle of all revolt and sin. It was confronting selfishness 
in its own native region with a system of benevolence pre- 
pared, as its avowed antagonist, by the hand of God himself; 
so that, unless we would impugn the skill and power of its Au- 
thor, we must suppose that it was studiously adapted for the 
lofty encounter. With this conviction, therefore, we should 
have been justified in sajdng, had we been placed in a situation 
to say it: "Nothing but the treachery of its professed friends 
can defeat it. If they attempt a compromise with the spirit of 
selfishness, there is every thing to be feared; but let the heav- 
enly system be worked fairly, and there is every thing to be 
expected: its triumph is certain." ("Harris's Mammon," pas- 
sages from Sections II., III., and IV.) 

Here, then, is the state of feeling in which God intends man 
to meet man. Without this love no arrangement of the relations 
of men, however perfect, can prevent discord and trouble. With 
this love there is no relation, however defective, but what can 
be made to produce mutual happiness. 



CHAPTEE III. 

Mutual Consideration, Mutual Helpfulness, and 
Doing All Work as Unto God. 

THE law of love is of universal force and domi- 
nates all other principles that I shall present. It 
is the general law^ and each of the others is the spe- 
cial manifestation of it. This love of one another 
must manifest itself in mutual consideration, which 
comes as our third principle. 

Principle III. — ''Whatsoever ye ivould that men 
should do to you, do you even so to them/' 

This requires that in every act involving a fellow- 
being I am to try to look at it from his stand-point as 
well as my own. I am to treat another just as I would 
be treated by him. This breaks down a narrow, self- 
ish view of things and leads to a broad, unselfish view, 
which is always not only the more correct, but the 
more advantageous. It is the narrow selfishness of a 
Charles the First which loses him his head, and of a 
George the Third that loses him an America. It is 
the calm and equitable consideration of others' inter- 
ests and rights which gives a William of Orange or a 
Washington an exalted place in history. 

One of the greatest difficulties under which civili- 
zation now labors is this looking at every thing from 
this stand-point of self, which shows itself especially 
in the present tendency to view every law or social 
problem from the stand-point of a class or a section. 
The employers co-operate together to accomplish what 

(77) 



78 Man, Money, and the Bible, 

they suppose will benefit them as employers, however 
it may affect the interests of others. The employees 
band themselves together to resist what they consider 
oppressive and to work for their own good. The farm- 
ers look at every thing as it affects agriculture. So 
wdth each of the classes composing the body politic 
and of that peculiar organism of our day, the incor- 
porated body. All are endeavoring to gain a person- 
al or a corporate, a class or a sectional advantage; and 
use all their power, including the ballot and pressure 
upon legislative bodies, to that end. Hence we find 
mighty cleavages in the body politic, showing a ten- 
dency to break up into classes — a disintegration which 
if it continues can only result in death. It is already 
a disease. For this disease with which we are now 
suffering and which threatens such fearful results and 
ravages in the future the principle of which we are 
now treating is the only remedy as it is in any circum- 
stances the only wise course. So intimately are we 
related, so inter-dependent are we, there can be no 
healthy condition for society which is not an advan- 
tage to all its elements; and there can be no class op- 
pressed and ground down and suffering but what so- 
ciety at large will be afflicted accordingly. 

The rich employer then must consider the condi- 
tion and the interest of his poor employee. The man- 
ufacturer who gives the weak sewing-woman a mere 
pittance for making a shirt, a pittance 'altogether 
insufficient for her needs, does a cruel wrong which 
cannot be atoned for by donating the profits on that 
shirt to charity. No employer has a right to any profit 
until those who work for him have been justly and 
fairly treated. To simply look at the labor supply 



Mutual Connderaiion^ Mutual Helpfulness, 79 

and get work at the cheapest possible price is to look 
at things from only the stand-point of his own inter- 
ests and to ignore the other side. For a man to give 
grossly insufficient wages to those dependent upon 
him for a support ought to be as infamous as robbery 
or theft; it is as wrong. Nor is it any more excuse 
to say that you cannot afford to do better and have a 
fair interest on the capital than it would be for a mer- 
chant to declare that he could not make a sufficient 
per cent, upon his goods without cheating in weights 
and measures. Necessity is no excuse for crime, es- 
pecially for a rich man to whiningly plead it as an ex- 
cuse for grinding the poor while his own luxuries are 
yet untouched. 

Bat the employee must be just to the employer also. 
He must in his demands take into consideration all 
that affects both parties, the state of the market, a 
fair return upon investments, the necessity for repairs, 
etc. And for a set of employees, fairly paid and just- 
ly treated, to grasp after more and to take advantage 
of circumstances to force it from the employer is 
also a palpable sin. " Look not every man upon his 
own things, but every man also upon the things of 
others." I do not know but that this last passage is 
a more exact statement of the great truth which I 
am now trying to enforce than the one I have chosen 
as a formula for Principle III. In either case all that 
I have here said is fully justified by the words of infi- 
nite wisdom. 

This law is not only applicable to persons and 
classes, but also to nations. All laws intended to act 
to the disadvantage of other nations and the advan- 
tage of our own are wrong in principle; and as all of 



80 Man^ Money, and the Bible, 

God's laws are self-executing, tlie nation tliat throws 
a Chinese wall about itself by unjust tariffs must, 
sooner or later, suffer from this disregard of prin- 
ciple. 

The great principle of love will not stoj) at merely 
being just. It must sweep on beyond these narrow 
boundaries into the wide regions of mercy, " whose 
quality is not strained." Hence we have 

Principle IV. — "Bear ye one another's burdens/' 

AVe must not only be mutually considerate: we 
must, if necessary, be mutually helpfuh The needs 
of our fellow-man must waken in us a desire to help, 
and this desire must go forth in active effort. Every 
man is a brother, and w^e must do by him a brother's 
part. Christ has set this principle before us in an 
illustration so aglow with light and radiant with 
mercy that, familiar as it is, I will give it here entire, 
rather than hunt up some inferior illustration myself: 

"And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted 
him, saying. Master, what shall I do to inherit eter- 
nal life? He said unto him. What is written in the 
law? how readest thou? And he answering said. 
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and 
with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. And 
he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, 
and thou shalt live. But he, willing to justify him- 
self, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor? And 
Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from 
Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which 
stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and 
departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there 
came down a certain priest that way; and when he saw 



Mutual Consideration^ Mutual Helpfulness. 81 

him, lie passed by on the other side. And likewise a 
Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on 
him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain 
Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was; and 
when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went 
to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and 
wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him 
to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow 
when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave 
them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him: 
and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come 
again, I will repay thee. Which now of these three, 
thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among 
the thieves? And he said. He that showed mercy on 
him. Then said Jesus unto him. Go, and do thou 
likewise." (Luke x. 25-37. ) 

Wherever the cry of distress is heard we are to 
hasten to its relief. No prejudice, nor bigotry, nor 
class-feeling is to make us shut our ears to hiimanity's 
appeal or fail to respond to humanity's needs. 

But we are not to carry this to the point of injuring 
the object of our charity. We are not allowed to 
needlessly indulge self in idleness or to so indulge one 
of our family. Still less is it right for us to support 
any in idleness who have no other claim on us than 
that of common humanity. 

The next economic principle which we find in the 
Bible is as follows: 

Principle V. — ^^All service or ivorh should he done as 
unfo the Lord^ and not unto man.'' 

This is the rule laid down for even slaves, but it 
runs through ffll manner of service. There is nothing 
more severely condemned than "eye service." Ac- 
G 



82 Man, Money, and the Bible. 

cording to tliis principle, a laborer, for instance, in a 
shoe-factory is to regard liis work as a God-appointed 
task, and he is to do it as unto Christ; and he may 
rightly look not only for wages from his employer, 
but also, if he has rightly performed his work, for a 
reward hereafter from his Maker. Thus we see the 
employer's interests are protected, as are also those of 
the future consumer. In this way every task would 
have conscience put into it. 

This view dignifies and ennobles all human labor. 
Our man in the shoe-factory is doing a work for hu- 
manity and for God. The right performance of that 
work glorifies his Maker and benefits his fellow-man. 
If the work is improperly done, it may bring great suf- 
fering in its wake. Suppose that he has something 
to do with putting the soles npon shoes. Himdrecls 
of them pass throngh his hands daily. Throngh his 
carelessness a certain per cent, of this number are cut 
in handling and are thus rendered leaky. But he con- 
ceals the mischief done, and these defective shoes are 
sold with the rest. Now follow a pair of these shoes 
to the market in some distant town. There a poor 
sewing-woman has been hoarding her savings to buy 
her winter's shoes. She has enough now to buy a 
cheap, machine-made pair, stout and warm. "With 
what joy she makes the purchase and lays the old 
jjair aside and puts upon her wearied feet that bright 
new pair! She dares to brave the snow and slush now 
in t-he prosecution of her work. But, alas! she has 
one of those injured shoes, and she comes home with 
cold, wet feet instead of the warm, dry ones she ex- 
pected. This gives her a severe cold, which settles 
upon her lungs and develops into consumption. 



Mutual Consideration^ Mutual Helpfulness. 83 

Through that long winter she works and coughs and 
drags her wearied body around in a dreary effort to 
support her little ones. Then in the spring she takes 
her bed, and others have to support her and hers. And 
some bright day in May they lay her w'asted, lifeless 
frame "under the daisies," and some homeless waifs 
are left to take their chances in the world. All this 
because a man without a conscience made the soles of 
her shoes. George Herbert well says: 

Wlio sweeps a room as for thy laws 
Makes that and the action fine. 



CHAPTEK IV. 

Discontent and Love of Money Condemned. 

THE word of God comes to us with these great 
principles prescribed for our guidance. And if 
these positive principles are regarded, if they become 
ingrafted in our natures, changing them into a like- 
ness to the divine nature, then the very motive to evil 
is eliminated and we need no further law or exhorta- 
tion. Then the "peaceful fruits of righteousness" 
shall so manifest themselves that the verdict of all 
observers shall be, "Against such there is no law," 
human or divine. But the Bible, the j)roduct of Him 
who "knew what was in man," does not stop with the 
revelation of these positive principles wliich, if ob- 
served, would meet the case, but it goes on to prohibit 
all that will lead to the opposite result. It comes 
down to restless, striving, foolish man, and it raises 
its voice in warning against those principles and prac- 
tices which have introduced discord, confusion, and 
every hateful crime among men. Seeing the great, 
struggling mass of humanity ready to do almost any 
thing to change their state, the Bible comes and says 
authoritatively : 

Principle YI. — ^^ Having food and raiment , let us be 
therewith content/' 

If man would listen to this voice, how the storms 

that rage about us would quiet down! "Food and 

raiment" represent almost all of material goods that 

can confer any real .f^ood upon the race. If the poor 

(84) 



Discontent and Love of Moneij Condenmed. 85 

man in good health, with a wife and children making 
glad his humble cottage, and with enough of wages to 
supply daily wants, knew it, he has no cause to envy 
any man any thing. The discontent of which Horace 
sung, however, is still characteristic of our .race. It 
is still approximately true: "No man lives content with 
that lot in which fortune has placed him." It is this 
discontent, growing out of the exaggerated ideas about 
the happiness of other men, which is a peculiar char- 
acteristic of our age. The restless mass move back- 
ward and forward, seeking a paradise upon earth and 
finding it not. Each class imagines that the others 
have the advantage of them, and they gi'ow dissat- 
isfied over imaginary wrongs. 

Now our principle recognizes that Vvdien man's le- 
gitimate wants are met then discontent is not only 
useless, but positively wrong. Up to the time that a 
man's honest work brings him enough to feed and 
clothe himself and his loved ones, there is no demand 
that he be satisfied; but the very moment that this is 
done, then the Word forbids him uniting his clamor to 
the universal cry for more. It does not forbid him 
making legitimate efforts to rise into a better condi- 
tion. Ever onward and upward it would have him 
forge ahead. But this is a very different thing from 
that restless discontent which is here condemned. 
The one is the mighty impulse, God-implanted, which 
ever moves mankind forward into wid^r plains; the 
other is the perversion of this impulse into a wild rage 
that would tear down all the marks of progress here- 
tofore made by the race. 

Principle YII. — ^'If riches increase^ set not your 
heart upon them," 



86 Man, Moneij, and the Bible. 

An ii separable part of that spirit of dissatisfaction 
of which we have just treated. is the feverish desire 
for riches, which is a marked characteristic of our 
day. Every one wants to be rich, and few are willing 
to wait for the ordinary methods to lead to this 
yearned for goal. Nothing but evil can come of this 
inordinate thirst for riches. Never was there a time 
when the world needed to listen m.ore attentively to 
the warning words of Paul : " But they that will be 
rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many 
foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in de- 
struction and perdition. For the love of money is 
the root of all evil; which while some coveted after, 
-they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves 
through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of 
God, flee these things ; and follow after righteousness, 
godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the 
good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life." We 
have already quoted the words of President Elliott, 
showing that he regarded this as the great evil stand- 
ing in the way of our progress as a nation in all the 
higher walks of life. 

Every man of thought, who has not himself been 
bitten by this universal craze for money, sees in it the 
mightiest foe to our well-being. From this " love of 
money " as a root there is springing up a terrible crop 
of evil, threatening destruction to Church and State 
and our whole social fabric. This inordinate desire 
for wealth leads to all manner of crime against the 
rights of our fellows. God's Word comes and forbids 
the very desire out of which these things grow; and 
this takes in those who have nothing as well as those 
who have great wealth. But as a matter of fact the 



Discontent and Love of Money Co)idemned. 87 

"increase of riches" increases the temptation to "set 
the heart upon them," and adds to all the temptations 
to get them improperly and to hold them contrary to 
the law of God. Hence James gives this exhortation 
and warning, especially to the rich: "Go to now, ye 
rich men, w^eep and howl for your miseries that shall 
come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your 
garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is 
cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness 
against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire." 
The Saviour raises his voice in gentle warning, saying 
solemnly, " Take heed, and beware of covetousness." 
He tells us emphatically that " it is easier for a camel 
to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to 
enter into the kingdom of God," and he means exact- 
ly what he says. There is no exegesis that can make 
these words mean less than the impossible. But 
Christ says that with God all things are possible, 
even this. What does this whole remarkable passage 
mean? In my opinion it sets forth the true doctrine 
of wealth and our relation to it. Christ intends to 
teach that so long as a man holds his wealth as his 
own, to do as he pleases with, so long it is impossible 
to enter the kingdom of heaven. He must make a 
complete surrender of himself and all he has before 
he can enter the "strait gate." He cannot give 
himself to God, and keep his riches to himself. He 
must unstrip himself of all his belongings, and turn 
them over to God; and then he can come in, and then 
only. Does this mean that he is to give away all his 
possessions before he can obtain eternal life? No; 
but it does mean that he recognizes his true relation 
to his wealth, that he accepts the divine statement 



88 JSJan^ Money, and ihc Bible. 

that the wealth is God's, and that he is simply God's 
agent to manage it for the good of mankind. The 
very moment that he honestly accepts this fact he is 
as poor a man as any one. If a poor but honest man 
has a vast estate put in his hands as trustee, to man- 
age for a family of minors, is he then rated as a rich 
man? Precisely this is man's true relation to his 
wealth. When he adjusts himself to this truth, he is 
then in a savable state; but he is in reality no more 
a rich man, as the world counts riches. But so long 
as he refuses to accept this truth, so long it is simply 
an impossibility for him to become a Christian. 
Riches are a great responsibility and a great trust, 
and a knowledge of their true character would take 
out of the liLiman heart the feverish and hurtful anx- 
iety to obtain them. 

Is it wrong, then, for man to try to obtain wealth? 
If he tries only in the proper manner, and then uses 
what he obtains as a trust to be managed for the good 
of man, then it becomes a noble act. There is no 
point wdiere God needs workers in his vineyard more 
than right here, and there have been no class of work-, 
ers so slow to put themselves in the liands of Christ. 
The entrepreneur (the master of finance) sees so clear- 
ly all the material advantages, is so powerfully im- 
pressed with tlie earthly, that it has always been diffi- 
cultto keep him from setting his heart upon riches, and 
so refusing to put himself in the hands of God or to 
surrender the results of his enterj^rise to the divine 
uses. Among the very twelve Christ laid his hands 
upon one of these clear-headed men of affairs. He 
needed him in his great v/ork. But he proved un- 
faithful to his high trust. When Judas recognized 



Discontent and Love of Money Condemned. 89 

the lofty talents of the Saviour, and saw his mighty 
power, he concluded that he was the coming Messiah, 
and he followed him as such. When the people tried 
to make Christ king, and he not only refused, but in 
that fearful arraignment of them recorded in John 
vi. set forth the spiritual character of his mission, ' 
there was one clear brain and sharp eye that saw far- 
ther than John or Peter. Judas, I think, saw there 
how easy it would have been for Christ to organize 
the nation at that crisis, and place himself on the 
throne. He understood, also, that he taught that 
such an earthly kingdom was foreign to his intention. 
He saw, further, that the course wdiich Christ deliber- 
ately chose would lead to a conflict with the Jewish 
hierarchy and with the Roman power. He seems to 
have resolved then and there that if Christ was de- 
termined to thus involve himself in sure destruction 
he would not follow him in the fool-hardy course. 
Why do I think that he determined at this time what 
his course should be? Because at the close of this 
record in John we have this: "Jesus answered them, 
Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a 
devil? He spake of Judas Iscariotthe son of Simon." 
This is the first that we hear of any thing wrong 
among the apostles, because it was here that the germ 
of his final betrayal was planted. 

Why do I believe that Judas was an able man, a 
man of affairs? In the first place, he w^as actually the 
financier of that company. He was their treasurer; 
he managed their affairs. Nor was it any small thing 
to provide for all the wants of a company of at least 
thirteen. Again, if I am right about the genesis of 
his crime, then the very reasoning which led to the 



90 Man, Money, and the Bible 

crime showed his remarkable penetration. He alone 
so far back in the ministry of Christ caught the fact 
of the purely spiritual character of his kingdom. 
Then the betrayal itself was a shrewd piece of work. 
If by putting him in the hands of his enemies he 
forced him to use his mighty power to destroy his 
foes, and to assume openly the power and prerogatives 
which Judas saw he possessed, then Judas simply gave 
him the opportunity to assert himself. If Christ con- 
tinued his meek policy, and for unaccountable reasons 
went down before his enemies, then Judas had made 
friends with the other side, and so would escape the 
ruin which he now considered it impossible to avert 
unless Christ called to his aid his divine power, which 
he could do as well as a prisoner as under any other 
circumstances. Then his thrifty nature discloses it- 
self in making all he could out of the transaction, on 
which he had doubtless determined independent of 
the thirty pieces of silver. 

I have dwelt thus far upon Judas because the sub- 
ject is in itself interesting, and because I believe it 
shows that God tried at first to get an entrepreneur 
among his workers, and failed. Then you remember 
the young man who came to him, and Jesus loved 
him? But when Christ, who knew him, placed before 
him the choice of salvation or his wealth, the young 
man w^ent away sad. I believe that here again Christ 
tried to get one of these clear-headed men to do his 
work, and failed; because he who has exceptional 
power to manage the affairs of this world always finds 
it hard to surrender it for that world which lies so far 
away and seems so shadowy to their practical brains. 

Thus down through the ages the Spirit has been 



Discontent and Love of Money Condemned. 91 

reaching out for a great manager of the fiscal affairs 
of the kingdom; and a glance at the money devoted 
to pleasure, to business enterprises, and to all man- 
ner of selfish work will show any one that this class 
of men have either held themselves aloof from tlue 
Lord's work, or that they have devoted but a modi' 
cum of their talents or their means to his service. 
Humanity, civili^iation, and the Church stand more 
in need of men who will make a right use of their 
talents in money-making than of any other character 
of workers for the race ; and this talent has been more 
withheld from the use of humanity and of God, and 
more perverted to the purposes of Satan, than any 
other gift which Providence has bestowed upon un- 
grateful man; and the possessor of this talent has been 
too much led to believe that the very exercise of his pe- 
culiar power was somehow at variance with God's law. 
Hence in the very determination to follow his natural 
impulses he settles the question of following what he 
believes to be right. His very determination to make 
money involves the idea in his mind that he was go- 
ing to do wrong; hence he puts himself at the start 
out of harmony with right living, and of course hence- 
forth he ignores the claims of right. Now I would 
come to every man specially endowed with this power 
to manage financial affairs, and I would say t*o him: 
"God wants you to exercise your gift; and so long as 
you make money rightly, and so long as you use it 
when made according to your best judgment and con- 
science for the benefit of the race, you are doing one 
of the greatest works ever given to humanity to per- 
form." 



CHAPTEE V. 

Delay of Payments to Labokers, Stealing, Unfoe- 

GiVENEss, and Sabbath-breaking Foebidden. 
OUCH emphasis lias been put in the Bible upon 
KJ the subject of proper payment of those whose 
services we secure that I shall put the following as 
my next principle: 

Peinciple VIII. — ^^ llie icages of him that is hired 
shall not abide ivith thee.'' 

In the passage from which this principle is quoted 
it is forbidden to delay the hireling's wages even un- 
til the morning. God's whole word forbids keeping 
back any part of what another has earned by his 
work, or even slow payment to needy laborers. In 
Deuteronomy xxiv. Ave have: *'Thou shalt not op- 
press a hired servant that is poor and needy. . . . 
At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall 
the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth 
his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the 
Lord, and it be sin unto thee." This sin of wronging 
laborers out of their work brought forth from the 
stern old Hebrew prophets some of the most fearful 
denunciations that ever fell from their lips. Take 
this passage from Jeremiah xxii. : "Woe unto him 
that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his 
chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbor's service 
without wages, and giveth him not for his work; that 
saith, I will build me a wide hoase and large cham- 
bers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is ceiled 
(02) 



Delaf/ of Payments to Laborers^ etc,^ Forbidden. 93 

with cedar, and painted with vermilion. Shalt thou 
reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar? did not 
thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and jus- 
tice, and then it was well with him? He judged the 
cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with 
him: was not this to know me? saith the Lord. But 
thine eyes and thy heart are not but for thy covetous- 
ness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppres- 
sion, and for violence, to do it. Therefore thus saith 
the Lord concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiali 
king of Judali; They shall not lament for him, say- 
ing, Ah my brother! or. Ah sister! they shall not la- 
ment for him, saying, Ah lord! or. Ah his glory! 
He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn 
and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem." These 
words were re-echoed by James, when in a burst of 
indignation against the unworthy rich he declares: 
"Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped 
down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, 
crieth: and the cries of them wdiich have reaped are 
entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth." 

Such are the terms used in God's word against 
those who wrong those who have worked for them. 
They express the highest kind of reprobation. It is 
more probably insufficient pay rather than no pay at 
all that is so fearfully denounced. As we have seen, 
the very slightest wrong against the workman, such 
as delay in payment, is forbidden, and has the strong 
terms "robbery" and "fraud" applied to it. God's 
eyes are on the poor, and his ears are ever open to 
their cry. He who oppresses or defrauds them shall 
surely awaken his wrath. 

Principle IX. — " Thou shall not steal/' 



94 Man, Money, and the Bible. 

This command is too well understood to call for 
any elaborate treatment here. What belongs to one 
man God has told all other men to let alone. So ex- 
ceedingly jealous is he of the rights of property that 
in another of the Ten Commandments he forbids ns 
to covet any thing that is our neighbor's. These two 
commands cover all possible methods of getting the 
property of other people without an equivalent. 

Specially, as has been pointed out recently by a 
writer, is all sorts of gambling and lotteries forbid- 
den by this eighth commandment. The London 
MetJiodist Times speaks as follows: 

It will be within the recollection of many of our readers that 
Mr. Bradfleld demonstrated in an admirable paper, which we 
had the privilege of publishing, that gambling stands in precis.e- 
ly the same relation to stealing that dueling stands to murder. 
In both cases the victim is a willing victim, and takes his 
chance of being the victor. But the enlightened opinion of 
these days does not excuse a duelist murderer because the man 
he has murdered consented to the arrangement and did his best 
to be the murderer. In the same way, a gambler cannot be ex- 
cused because the confederate whom he fleeces is a consenting 
party. In that case also the consent of the victim does not al- 
ter the moral character of the act. However unworthy the vic- 
tim may be of sympathy or pity, the gambler is none the less 
to blame in the sight of God and of all who rise above the im- 
perfect and conventional morality of our semi-barbarism. We 
believe that no effectual restraint will be placed upon the prac- 
tice of gambling until every gambler, be he prince or peasant, 
is branded as a thief. 

Then among short-sighted and hasty-tempered 
men, one of the most important principles is this: 

Pkinciple X. — '' Forgive, if ye have ought against 
any/' 

So important is this that Christ declares: "But if 



Delay of Payments to Laborers, etc., Forbidden. 95 

ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is 
in heaven forgive your trespasses." It is made a 
sine qua non to salvation. Nor is this overstressing 
the necessity for this virtue. It is human to want to 
get even. That my opponent has stopped his injuries 
is not enough for my injured pride, not even when he 
is sorry for his misdoing. He has made me suffer^ 
and he too must suffer. This is man's feeling. But 
God meets this wrathful spirit with an emphatic 
"don't." And he so emphasizes this command as to 
assure man that his own salvation is directly involved 
in his forgiving his enemy. How this j)Ours oil upon 
troubled waters! 

Principle XL — " The seventh day is the Sabbath of 
the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work J' 

Six days are granted unto man to attend to the af- 
fairs that belong to economics, but the seventh is ab- 
solutely forbidden for this purpose. It is the time 
for attending to the interest of the soul exclusively, 
while the tired body and mind rests for its tasks in 
the coming week. The claims of this day, however^ 
are not put above human need, but wherever there is 
real human necessity there we are authorized to treat 
the Sabbath as any other day. But this must be a 
work of genuine necessity, not a money-making 
scheme. Man has no real right to property earned 
by breaking the Sabbath-day. These express compa- 
nies that make such a fuss over the stealages of some 
of their employees are but reaping where they have 
sown. They have taught men to set aside one of 
the laws of God; it is no wonder that they teach 
them to set aside another. And the thieving clerk 
has as much right to the property he gets as the 



96 Man, Money, and the Bible. 

company lias to that which has been earned on the 
Sabbath. 

God is cheated out of the worship due him, and 
man is cheated out of his proper rest, whenever the 
Sabbath is used as a common day of work. All good 
citizens should unite with the wronged workmen who 
are forced to break the Sabbath, and see to it that 
every American has a day of rest. 



CHAPTEK VI. 

Some Absolute Sociological Laws. 

XXTE have discussed in previous chapters the 

^ ^ principles which the Bible requires to be ob- 
served in our dealings with men and our management 
of our private affairs. In this chapter I propose to 
treat of certain fixed principles whicli the Bible re- 
veals as existing in the realm of human activity just 
as gravity, density, and others exist in the realm of 
physics. All that man can do in these cases is to 
learn the law and conform himself to it. His action 
in the premises can have no effect upon the law itself. 
The reckless man who ignores gravity and leaps from 
a precipice is simply crushed into a shapeless mass at 
its feet, but the great law is unchanged and the gen- 
eral order of nature undisturbed. So a man may neg- 
lect these great laws; but if so, he does it at his own 
peril. He cannot alter, he can only conform. 

These principles are as follows: 

I. — ^^To him that hath shall be given/' 

Like it if we do or do not, there it stands, as true, 
as solid, and as awful as Gibraltar. The advantage 
of having is not, as many suppose, the result of legis- 
lation, bat is in the very nature of things. Neither 
can it be altered by legislation. Yet this is precisely 
what the short-sighted agitator of our day is gener- 
ally trying to do — change the unalterable law of God: 
*'To him that hath shall be given." 

Let me illustrate. We will suppose that a man owns 
7 (97) 



98 Man, Money, and the Bible, 

160 acres of land and puts a fence of four planks 
around the whole tract. His poorer neighbor has a 
tract of just sixteen acres. That is just one tenth as 
much as the other. He too must protect his property 
with a fence, we will suppose of the same character. 
The richer man will have to provide a fence contain- 
ing 21,120 feet of lumber, and this at $10 a thousand 
for his lumber will amount to S211.20, or $1.32 per 
acre. Now our poorer man must use 6,679 feet of 
fencing at a cost of $66.80, or $4.17 per acre. Our 
richer man has ten times as much land as the other, 
but it takes only 3.17 times as much to fence it; and 
we see by the above figures that the poorer man has 
to bear a larger tax by $2.85 per acre than his neigh- 
bor. 

This is in the nature of things, and cannot be al- 
tered. Nor is this an unusual incident. Take the 
price of wood by the cord and by the fifty cents' worth 
and work it out, and you will find something very sim- 
ilar. Does this look strange? Let us look then at 
the next one of these great principles: 

II. — ^'From him that hath not shall he taken/^ 
Things act to the advantage of the man that has. 
But no less certainly they act against the man who 
has not. A man has to buy on credit. Calculate the 
per cent, he pays over and above the cash customer. 
Nor is this an injustice, as he is sometimes disposed 
to believe; but in the very nature of things. The mer- 
chant who sold only at a fair price to his cash cus- 
tomers and yet gave his credit ones the same bargains 
would soon be in the hands of the sheriff. I care not 
where you turn, you will find the man who has not 
laboring under peculiar disadvantages. These disad- 



Some Ahsolide Sociological Laics. 99 

vantages are sometimes iinaccoiintable, but tliey are 
invariably there. AVe will sup]3ose I am looking out 
for a wood-cliojDper. A man comes along without an 
ax and wants the job; but as I have none, I am com- 
pelled not to give it to him. He and his babes, per- 
chance, go supperless to bed that night. Another 
comes along with an ax and secures the job, earning 
money to meet his needs. The difference between 
them was the possession of $1.50, but it meant much. 
Had the two men come together, and had I possessed 
an ax, I w^ould certainly have given the job to the 
man wdio came with his tool for work with him, for 
the tool of the one bespoke the workman and the ab- 
sence of it would suggest the tramp. 

These principles seem harsh at first, nor are we able 
to fully understand their wisdom; but God has re- 
vealed in connection with them his method of equal- 
izing things. " For unto whomsoever much is given, 
of him much shall be required." Certain burdens 
are to be borne for the race. God adjusts these bur- 
dens to the strength of the parties. Man can do noth- 
ing but follow the divine example and adjust the bur- 
dens of society and government upon this principle. 
The rich, having in the nature of things the advan- 
tage, should be made to bear the great burden of sup- 
porting society; while the poor man should be left to 
take care of himself and family and keep them from 
becoming a burden upon society either as paupers or 
as criminals. Yet our tariff laws do the exact oppo- 
site of this. They burden the poor man out of all 
proportion to his rich neighbor. In fact, this policy 
not only neglects this divine plan, but it disregards 
the next one of these great i:)rinciples. 



100 Man, Moneij, and the Bible. 

III. — '^Whosoever ivill save his life shall lose it/' 
Does man rebel against the divine arrangement by 
which all the powers of his being and all the products 
of his labors are devoted to God and the benefit of the 
human race? and does he endeavor to wrest them to 
his own use and enjoyment? The effort is absolutely 
in vain. He may take his life out of the service of 
the Almighty, but he may rest assured that it, or just 
so much of it as he endeavors to devote to his own 
exclusive use and enjoyment, is absolutely lost. By 
the unvarying law of God, acting beyond the reach of 
man's strength or will, selfishness is doomed to thwart 
its own purposes and destroy itself. Who that has 
watched the play of forces in the field of sociology 
does not see the working of this mysterious law? A 
narrow, selfishpolicy is always unwise and always leads 
to undesirable results. The seeming exceptions are 
only exceptions in appearance. Nemesis is on the 
track of the would-be rebel against the divine econ- 
omy, and sooner or later it will overtake him; and the 
longer any judgment of this court is in being executed 
the more fearful the day of reckoning when it does 
come. 

This is as true of nations as it is of individuals. 
Here too those who seek only their own advantage, 
and disregard and set aside all the claims and rights 
of others, are sure to lose the very thing they make 
such elaborate efforts to save. Now, as I have said, the 
tariff laws of the United States utterly disregard this 
great law. They are the very eml5odiment of national 
selfishness. They throw themselves directly in the path 
of the irresistible forces of the universe, and sooner 
or later they must be crushed by the power they defy. 



Some Absolute Sociological Laws, 101 

Already our merchant marine has been driven from 
the seas; ah^eady the marts of merchandise at our 
very doors are nearly monopolized by foreign traders ; 
already our agricultural classes are being crushed by 
the reaction of these laws against their products and 
the increase of the price of ^11 that they buy. It will 
be well for us if we take warning in time, and, by 
changing our policy, avoid the results of violated law, 
for there is a. place for repentance in all these things. 
I believe that there is not a single wrong suffered by 
society, not a perplexing problem pressing for solu- 
tion, not a dangerous cloud darkening our political 
sky, but what it is intensified by these tariff laws. 

A glance at history verifies the law laid down by 
Christ. Did the Jews reject the unattractive spirit- 
ual kingdom he offered them, and proceed to try to 
set up a kingdom upon earth which should magnify 
the Jews and humiliate their foes? They simply com- 
mitted national suicide. Their scattered people and 
desolated cities were God's answer to tile effort to 
" save their life." 

Did the proud Roman ignore every thing but his 
own pleasure? Their great families literally rotted 
in moral corruption, their proud aristocracy was swept 
from the earth, and the reins of the world fell from 
their nerveless hands. They proved recreant to their 
trust, and the trust is taken from them. 

The kings of the earth used their high authority 
and place to indulge in all kinds of vice, luxury, vio- 
lence, and tyranny; and not as a great trust to be used 
to advance human happiness and welfare; and their 
headless bodies and crownless heads stand as monu- 
ments to the unwisdom of their course ; while the very 



102 Man, Moneij, and the Bible. 

name of one of their greatest families, Bourbon, lias 
become a by-word and a sneer, representing a folly too 
great to learn any thing from misfortune. God lias 
written it all along the course of human history : self- 
ishness is the surest road to self-destruction. He has 
declared it in his Word. Yet men are too dull to see 
or believe. 

So much of every man's life as is kept from the use 
of the race and devoted to his own service is embez- 
zled, and God therefore declares: "Whosoever will 
save his life shall lose it." 

IV. — ^^It is more blessed to give than to receive.'' 
Not only has God so emphatically denounced self- 
ishness and so clearly revealed its folly. He has also 
declared the blessings of unselfish benevolence. Un- 
selfishness acts to the real best interest of self. Nor 
does this mean that when we reach the world of spir- 
its we shall find that unselfishness is there so rewarded 
as to make it the best and wisest course. It is so here 
and now. Instead of that portion of our life that we 
devote to others, to God, and to humanity being taken 
from self, the Saviour says: "Whosoever shall lose his 
life for my sake shall find it." The last fragment of 
life that is devoted to these high purposes shall react 
in a mysterious way for the emolument and advance- 
ment of self. Do Livingston and Stanley, in devo- 
tion to the wants of humanity, leave civilization be- 
hind, with all its tempting prizes and its joys, and bury 
themselves in African jungles? Some day they wake 
up to find themselves the world's heroes, and they are 
astonished to find civilization waiting to crown them 
with such wreaths as are never bestowed upon one 
who has not given his life, or risked it, for her. So 



Some Absolute Sociological Laws, 103 

universally does ■anselfishness work to the advantage 
of an individual that the noblest works of self-aban- 
donment are often disparaged by the accusation that 
they were the work of far-sighted selfishness which 
saw the advantage it was to reap. Have you ever no- 
ticed the orator, conscious of himself and trying to 
show what excellent things he could do? What a 
ridiculous figure he cuts! But let that orator forget 
himself, and try to move and benefit men, and be so 
absorbed in his theme as to be oblivious of himself, 
and how almost godlike he becomes! So it is with 
every human act. It only acts for the good of self 
when it is the outcome of a nobler thing than selfish- 
ness. 

Of all objects in nature the flowering shrub seems 
to most devote itself to the benefit of the world with- 
out doing any thing for itself. Its beautiful flowers 
spread themselves abroad to delight other eyes, and 
it pours out its perfume on the sweet-scented air to 
refresh each passer-by. But these very things which 
are thus generously given to others are the qualities 
that attract the pollen-laden insect that fructifies its 
blooms, and so secures vigorous seeds to perpetuate 
itself. In revelation, history, and nature God utters 
this truth. 

V. ^^A man^s life conslsteth not in the abundance of the 
things ivhich he posse sseth." 

Man is greater than his possessions, and he is not 
the mere creature of his environment. Environment 
can never make a man ; it cannot unmake a true man. 
Many of the reforms now being pressed proceed upon 
the false principle that if you improve man's condi- 
tion you improve him necessarily. This reverses the 



104 Man, Moneij, and the Bible. 

facts. Improve man, and he will improve liis own 
condition. The projects that propose to revolution- 
ize the world, morally, by simply revolutionizing the 
relations and conditions of mankind are simply chi- 
merical. 

Man may disbelieve in all these absolute laws here 
presented, and disregard their execution. They 
move right on ; and if man gets in their way, so much 
the more they show their power. Legislation and 
custom make no difference. They stop not to con- 
sult with man, individually or collectively. They ex- 
ecute themselves. As free and as unvarying as the 
mighty forces that move the stars, they go on their 
way; and man can do nothing but adjust himself to 
them, or be crushed in their path. 

Here we have set forth in these principles that 
should control our conduct, and in these laws that do 
control in sociology, the economic doctrines of the 
Bible. AVho can devise a better political economy? 
Have we not here the very basis for a science that the 
wise have been hunting for? A political economy writ- 
ten from this stand-point will give us a science of eco- 
nomics as it ought to be; and if such a work recognizes 
the actual existence of the conflicting principles of 
selfishness, and the modification of the power of love 
resulting therefrom, then we would have a work true 
to the facts as at present found in the field of soci- 
ology. 

The world has calmly assumed that these great 
principles of the Bible are suitable for some ideal 
Utopian state, but utterly unfit for our woik-a-day 
world; and the Church itself has, in practice at least, 



Some Absolute Sociological Laws. 105 

accepted this position as true. On the contrary, these 
principles are eminently practicable; they will work, 
and work to the highest ends of the individual and of 
the body politic. 

Is it contended that they are only practicable in a 
world converted to Christ? I answer that the mone- 
tary affairs are in the hands of Christian nations 
now, and mostly under the domination of professedly 
Christian people. Are these things waved aside con- 
temptuously, as only fit for Utopia? I answer that 
in the providence of God we have arrived at a point 
where we must make this earth — at least our great 
republic — an Utopia, or it will become an Erebus. 



PART 111. 

WHAT REVOLUTION SHALL IT BE? 

(107) 



CHAPTER I. 

Eevolution Imminent. 

rr^HE evidences that the present order of things is 
-L niore and more unsatisfactory to the masses are 
constantly accumulating. Murmurs deep and loud 
are heard on every hand. If those who imagine that 
things must go on forever as they now are will study 
history and mark the signs of the times, they will see 
an alarming number of things presaging revolution. 

Look at the marvelous development of the vastly 
rich in our nation. Read Dr. Strong, or better, Mr. 
Thomas G. Shearman in the Forum, and weigh their 
words well. The latter says: ''Making the largest 
allowance for exaggerated reports, there can be no 
doubt that these seventy names [which he had just 
given] represent an aggregate wealth of $2,700,000,000, 
or an average of over $37,500,000 each. . . . The 
facts already stated conclusively demonstrate that the 
wealthiest class in the United States is vastly richer 
than the wealthiest class in Great Britain. The aver- 
age annual income of the richest hundred English- 
men is about $450,000; but the average annual income 
of the richest hundred Americans cannot be less than 
$1,200,000, and probably exceeds $1,500,000." 

How rapidly both extremes of society, the very 
rich and the very poor, are increasing among us! 
Mark, too, how these rich are combining in trusts and 
soulless corporations; and how they control our leg- 
islation and dominate our politics. The political 

(109) 



110 Man, Money, and the Bible. 

parties, indeed, court the poor man publicly, but all 
know that they are controlled by the rich. This plu- 
tocracy is getting to be something terrible. The 
luxury and the extravagance and selfishness of our 
rich, their utter disregard of any obligation upon 
their part toward society, make a situation naturally 
dangerous still more so. Now listen to Carlyle in his 
"French Revolution:" 

In fact, what can be more natural, one may say inevitable, as 
a Post-Sans culottic transitory state, than even this ? Confused 
wreck of a republic of the poverties, which ended in reign of 
terror, is arranging itself into such composure as it can. Evangel 
of Jean- Jacques, and most otlier evangels, becoming incredible, 
what is there for it but return to the old evangel of Mammon? 
Contrat-social is true or untrue, brotherhood is brotherhood or 
death; but money always will buy money's worth. In the 
wreck of the human dubitations, this remains indubitable, that 
pleasure is pleasant. Aristocracy or feudal parchment has 
passed away with a mighty rushing; and now, by a natural 
course, we arrive at aristocracy of the money-bag. It is the 
course through which all European Societies are at this hour 
traveling. Apparently a still baser soit of aristocracy? An. in- 
finitely baser; basest yet known. 

In which, however, there is this advantage, that, like anarchy 
itself, it cannot continue. Plast thou considered how thought is 
stronger than artillery parks, and (were it fifty years after death 
and martyrdom, or were it two thousand years) writes and un- 
writes acts of Parliament, removes mountains, models the world 
like soft clay? Also how the beginning of all thought, worth 
the name, is love; and the wise head never yet was without 
first the generous heart? The heavens cease not their bounty; 
they send us generous hearts into every generation. And now 
what generous heart can pretend to itself, or be hoodwinked 
into believing, that loyalty to the money-bag is a noble loyalty ? 
Mammon, cries the generous heart out of all ages and countries, 
is the basest of known gods, even of known devils. In him 
what glor^' is there that ye should worship him ? No glory dis- 



Revolution Imminent. Ill 

cernal/lc; not even terror: at best, detestability, ill matched 
with despisability ! Generous hearts discerning, on this hand, 
wide-spread wretchedness, dark without and within, moistening 
its ounce and half of bread with tears; and, on that hand, mere 
balls in flesh-colored drawers, and inane or foul glitter of such 
sort, cannot but ejaculate, cannot but announce: Too much, 
O divine Mammon; somewhat too much! The voice of these, 
once announcing itself, carries fiat and pereat in it, for all things 
here below. (''The Guillotine," Book YII., chapter vii.) 

Now turn to the other extreme — the poor, the idle, 
the worthless, and the wretched. Listen to their 
murmurs and their curses deep and loud. Eead 
again in Carlyle: 

But fancy what effect this Thyestes repast and trampling on 
the national cockade must have had in the Salle des Menus in 
the famishing bakers' queues at Paris! Nay, such Thyestes re- 
pasts, it would seem, continue. . . . Yes, here with us is 
famine, but yonder at Versailles is food, enough and to spare. 
Patriotism stands in queue, shivering, hunger struck, insulted 
by patrollotism, while bloody-minded aristocrats, heated with 
excess ofhigh living, tramj)le on the national cockade. Can the 
atrocity be true? Nay, look — ^green uniforms faced with red, 
black cockades — the color of night! Are we to have military 
onfall, and death also, by starvation? For, behold, the Corbeil 
corn-boat which used to come twice a day with its plaster-of- 
Paris meal, now comes only once. And the town-hall is deaf, 
and the men are laggard and dastard! At the Cafe de Foy, 
this Saturday evening, a new thing is seen, not the last of its 
kind — a woman engaged in public speaking. Her poor man, 
she says, was put in silence loy his district, their presidents and 
officials would not let him speak. Wherefore she here, with her 
shrill tongue, will speak, denouncing, while her breath endures, 
the Corbeil boat, the plaster-of-Paris bread, sacrilegious opera 
dinners, green uniforms, pirate aristocrats, and those black 
cockades of theirs! 

Truly, it is time for the black cockades at least to vanish. 
Then pattrollotism itself will not protect. Nay, sharp tempered 
"M. Tassin," at the Tuileries' parade on Sunday morning, for- 



112 Man, Money , and the Bible. 

gets all national military rule, starts from the ranks, wrenches 
down one black cockade which is swashing ominous there, and 
tramples it fiercely into the soil of France. Pattrollotism itself 
is not without suppressed fury. Also the districts begin to stir; 
the voice of President Danton reverberates in the Cordeliers. 
l*eople's friend Marat has flown to Versailles and back again — 
swart bird, not of the halcion kind. 

And so patriot meets promenading patriot this Sunday, and 
sees his own grim care reflected on the face of another. Groups, 
in spite of pattrollotism, which is not so alert as usual, fluctuate 
deliberative — groups on the bridges, on the quais, at the patri- 
otic cafees. And ever; as any black cockade may emerge, rises 
the many voiced growl and bark, A bas (down)? All black 
cockades are ruthlessly plucked off"; one individual picks his up 
again, kisses it, attempts to refix it, but "hundred canes start 
into the air," and he desists. Still worse went it with another 
individual, doomed by extempore i:»lebiscitum to the lantern; 
saved with difficulty by some active Corps de Garde. Lafayette 
sees signs of an evervescence, which he doubles his i)atrols, 
doubles his diligence, to prevent. So passes Sunday the 4th of 
October, 1789. 

Sullen is the male heart, repressed l)y pattrollotism; vehe- 
ment is the female, irrei3ressible. The public speaking woman 
at the Palais Royal was not the only speaking one. Men know 
not what the pantry is when it grows empty, only house moth- 
ers know. Old women, wives of men that will only calculate 
and not act! Pattrollotism is strong, but death by starvation 
and military onfall is stronger. Pattrollotism represses male 
patriotism; but female patriotism? Will guards named nation- 
al thrust their bayonets into the bosoms of women? Such 
thought, or rather such dim, unshaped raw material of a 
thought, ferments universally under the female night-cap, and 
by earliest day-break on slight hint will explode." (F. Rev., 
^TI 536-540, of Book VII., iii. The Bastile.) 

Then look again at the combination of all classes 
into societies, well - organized and ably officered. 
Mark the numbers on their rolls, and note their en- 
thusiasm. Bead again: 



Revolution hnminent. 113 

"Where the heart is full, it Fceks, for a thousand reason*, iu a 
thousand ways, to impart itself. How sweet, indispensable, in 
such cases, is fellowship; soul mystically strengthening soul. 
. . . In such a France, gregarious reunions will needs multi- 
ply, intensify; French life will step out of d^ors, and, from do- 
mestic, become a public club life. Old clubs, which already 
germinated, grow and flourish; new everywhere bud forth. It 
is the sure symptom of social unrest: in such way, most infal- 
libly of all, does social unrest exhibit itself; finds solacement 
and also nutriment. In every French head there hangs now, 
whether for terror or for hope, some prophetic picture of a New 
France: prophecy which brings, nay which almost is, its own 
fulfillment; and in all ways, consciously and unconsciously, 
works toward that. 

Observe, moreover, how the Aggregative Principle, let it be 
but deep enough, goes on aggregating, and this even in a geo- 
metrical progression; how when the wdiole world, in such a 
plastic time, is forming itself into clubs, some one club, the strong- 
est or luckiest, shall by friendly attracting, by victorious compel- 
ling, grow ever stronger, till it become immeasurably strong; 
and all the others, with their strength, be either loving absorbed 
into it, or hostilely abolished by it. This if the club spirit is 
universal; if the time is x>iastic. Plastic enough is the time, 
univereal the club spirit: such an all-absorbing paramount, one 
club cannot be wanting. (C. F. R., 1[1[ 704-706.) 

Is this not descriptive of our day? Are not all 
tliese premonitions of a coming storm about us? Are 
they not indications that we will have a revolution 
unless there be a reformation? Sucli is the opinion 
of the leading thinkers in economic circles. Head 
the following from Professor Ely: "Economic science 
lias shown us the possibility of better things for the 
masses, and we cannot rest quietly with things as 
they are. Our responsibility for conditions which 
have been mentioned is something w^e feel in spite of 
ourselves. We may deny it, we may ask indignant- 
ly, *Am I my brother's keeper?' but dowm deep in 



114 Man^ Mo7iey, and the Bible. 

our hearts and consciences we feel this responsibility, 
and even while denying it we show that we feel it by 
our acts and by our conversation." 

Change, then, being imminent, it becomes both in- 
teresting and profitable to try to discover what 
change will be for the better; for if the better plan 
is not adopted, the worse will be forced upon us. 
Let us then carefully examine the various revolutions 
and reforms which have been proposed, and weigh 
their relative merits. 



CHAPTEE 11. 

Eevolution Proposed in Co-opeeation. 

THERE are a large number of thinkers in econom- 
ic science wlio believe that all the friction be- 
tween capital and labor can be done away with by co- 
operation. This combines the capitalist and laborer 
in the same person, and makes that person interested 
in the profits of the money and the work which have 
been put into any given product. 

The proposition is simply this: A large number of 
poor men are to unite, and by taking stock in a given 
enterprise are themselves to furnish the capital nec- 
essary to put say a large manufactory in operation. 
These stockholders are supposed to be experts in the 
proposed work, and they also become the operatives. 
They elect their managers, bosses, book-keepers, sales- 
men, and all employees other than the regular opera- 
tives. One man, then, furnishes one kind of work, 
and another a different kind; and of course their pay 
will differ in proportion to the responsibility and dif- 
ficulty of the task. However, when it is all really un- 
der way, the income will be used to first pay all em- 
ployees; and then, if a surplus is left, it will be divided 
as dividends among the stockholders. According to 
this system the employers engage themselves to do 
the work. The same parties are employers and em- 
ployees, and, in the very nature of things, there is no 
room for any friction. If each of these persons were 
an intelligent, unselfish, industrious, efficient, and 
(115) 



116 Man^ Monnj^ and the Bible. 

bonest man, there would be a good cliance of success 
ill this project; but, as man is now constituted, I con- 
fess that I see little light in this direction. There 
seems to me to be almost insuperable difficulties to 
the scheme, both internal and external. I invite the 
reader to follow me in a careful consideration of these 
difficulties. 

The first difficulty in these days of vast enterprises, 
carried on by great accumulations of capital, will be 
found in the securing of sufficient capital in this way 
to accomplish any thing. We might say that in man- 
ufacturing to-day $1,000,000 is the average capital 
necessary to make an enterprise sufficiently strong. 
Now to find one thousand laborers of the same kind, 
with $1,000 each, will be found a difficult thing in 
practical life. It would be still more difficult to find 
a larger number of them with smaller amounts to in- 
vest. 

Should we succeed in organizing our enterprise, we 
would yet be by no means through with our trouble. 
We would encounter still greater difficulty in the act- 
ual operation. Here, in fact, I must believe that, 
unless these thousand men were totally difPerent 
from the ordinary men gathered promiscuously, al- 
most insuperable difficulty would interpose. Some of 
these men would be ambitious, and they would have 
a higher ojjinion of themselves than any one else; 
and wdien others were taken for the more responsible 
and the better paid positions, they would become en- 
vious and cause more or less friction. Others could 
not be made to see the reason why the places of least 
manual labor should have the best pay. 

Again, we would find some lazy stockholders who 



Revolution Proposed in Co-operation, 117 

would not do their share of the work; but as they held 
stock, it would be difficult to get rid of them. The 
same problem would be presented by the drunken la- 
borer. Though he had impaired his productive ca- 
pacity below the average, it w^ould be found much 
more difficult to get rid of him than in the ordinary 
case. Of course they would have the right to buy out 
objectionable parties; but each man would be found 
to have his friends, and they would make a fight for 
him; and all this would cause division, friction, and 
disorganization. Some years ago the writer knew of 
a serious strike in a large railroad shop, because the 
boss discharged a drunken workman. It seems to me 
that co-operation must increase rather than diminish 
the friction incident to discharging workmen. 

Should the management prove inefficient, or for 
any cause unsatisfactory, the trouble growing out of 
an efi'ort at change would be still greater. 

Again, should those who manage the funds of the 
concern prove dishonest, it would be easy to defraud 
men unfamiliar with finance and book-keeping. The 
few managers might readily combine to fleece the 
many stockholders. 

It may be asked if the same difficulty is not inci- 
dent to all stock companies. Not so much so, from 
the fact that large enough blocks of stock are in the 
hands of skilled financiers, who keep a careful look- 
out for their interests. In this case such men, in the 
very nature of the case, would be absent. 

Nor is it likely, again, that these workmen would 
pay salaries sufficient to command first-class talent 
for the management of their affairs. This would put 
them in ]30or shape to meet competition in the field. 



118 ' MaU) Money, and the Bible. 

But this brings us to the consideration of the ex- 
ternal difficulties in the way of co-operation. They 
would have to meet in the field of competition vast 
capital ready to fight for its life. This capital would 
resort to all plans to cheapen their product to a point 
below the power of the co-operative concern to follow. 
They would cut down the wages of their workmen. 
The removal of a large number of the better fixed la- 
borers from the open market, while they are still at 
work in productive manufacture, would put the re- 
mainder, who would be unable to get work in the co- 
operative establishment, more than ever in the power 
of the capitalist class. Should these laborers strike, 
they would soon learn that, for all practical XDurposes, 
their stockholding brethren had become capitalists; 
for we can scarcely suppose that they now would un- 
selfishly help to support their striking brothers, when 
there is no prospect of their needing such help them- 
selves. 

The capitalists would also use women and children's 
labor, wherever practicable. Again, haviiig friends 
among all other classes of capitalists, they would se- 
cure, in spite of law, advantages over the co-operatives 
in fue], freight, and other respects. 

Again, the capitalists' concerns, being managed 
from the top by a compact and skilled set of men, to 
whom the highest officers are responsible, and who 
are themselves independent of these officers, would 
naturally be more efficiently managed than concerns 
whose managers had all the large number of stock- 
holders more or less in their power. The result of 
all this would be that the capitalists would undersell 
the competitors in the market; and that means that 



Revolution Proposed in Co-operation. 119 

the co-operatives would sooner or later be driven from 
the field. 

These reasons seem to me conclusive in proof that 
co-operation would not meet the emergency, so long 
as man is not vastly greater and better than he now 
is. It is to be noted that the difficulties we see are 
almost all traceable to human wickedness. 

I have no doubt that co-operation on a small scale, 
and not assuming proportions of such magnitude as 
to provoke especial opposition from capital, would be 
moderately successful; but such a small scale busi- 
ness would accomplish nothing toward solving our 
problem. 

There is a modified form of co-operation which is 
proposed. In this the capitalist owns and runs his 
factory, but he voluntarily gives his operatives a part 
of the profits of the business, in addition to the wages 
of the men. This would be a wise and politic plan, 
but such a slight adjustment of things would by no 
means do away with friction or banish all difficulty. 
Selfish and exacting employers would still clash with 
unreasoning employees, while generous and wise men 
can operate the present plan without serious trouble. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Eevolution Peoposed by Heney Geokge in 
Land Ownership. 

AS to Henry George's proof that man can liave 
no absolute title to land, we Lave seen that this 
is true of other property as well. Absolute title is in 
God alone. 

As to his proposed land tax, considered as a plan 
for the simplifying of our tax system and equalizing 
the burdens of government, there is no special objec- 
tion. A single tax has much in its favor. As a wise 
and equitable method of raising money for the sup- 
port of the State it commends itself to the judgment. 
A single tax would be a vast improvement on our 
present system of complex taxation. 

But this is not really Mr. George's system. This is 
intended only as a stepping-stone to something else. 
He proposes to tax land to the full extent of rent. He 
proposes that the government shall receive from land 
all that the landlords in country and city now receive 
for the whole land property of the country, not in- 
cluding improvements. It is a long jump toward so- 
cialism. This is not to say that it is necessarily 
Avrong, but it is to say that it changes the whole prin- 
ciple of government and society. This of course 
should not be done, unless for grave reasons. It 
would raise by taxation a sum far beyond the neces- 
sities of the government. This sum would be spent 
for the benefit of the masses, in some way not clearly 
(120) 



The Revolution Proposed hy Henry George, 121 

revealed. It would belong to the whole State, and it 
would be distributed in some manner so as to do away 
with poverty, want, and vice. How this is to be done 
so as to not administer to lazine^Bs I have not been able 
to make oat. 

Peculiar difficulty will be found in the inaugura- 
tion of this reform, if it is pressed in the form of con- 
fiscation of landed values. The capitalist, the farm- 
er, the owner of his home in town and city, will be 
found a solid wall in opposition. Now there must be 
powerful arguments introduced to prove to these par- 
ties that the surrender of their property on their part 
will operate to the public good to an extent that will 
justify their personal sacrifice, before their patriotism 
can be made to outweigh their individual interests. 
It is folly to talk of the homeless taking this right 
from them without their consent. The land owners 
and their natural allies are the rulers of this country, 
and what is done must be done with their consent. I 
believe that it would not be an impossible task to se- 
cure this consent if it could be shown that the pro- 
posed reform was based in equity and would work to 
the advantage of the whole State, including of course 
the former land owner. 

Can this be done? Let us point out some reasons 
why it cannot. Having shown that the land owner's 
title to land is derived from God, just as in the case 
of other property, and that it rests on as secure a ba- 
sis as any other property, it follows as a matter of 
course that its owners cannot be made to see that it is 
equity for them to surrender their possessions to other 
]3eople — precisely because it is not equity. The con- 
science of good men shows them nothing wrong in 



122 MaUy Money, and the Bible, 

the ownership of land and no difference between that 
and their other possessions, nor has the excellent 
reasoning of Henry George aroused this conscience 
to the realization of a»y such wrong. Christian men 
consider that their very endowments of mind and 
body belong to God, and that they must be used for 
the good of the race. They put their ownership of 
land on the same basis; hence it is impossible to 
arouse their conscience on this subject, unless you 
can first miseducate the conscience. Now no revolu- 
tion can stand any chance of success in our country 
unless it bases itself upon the Christian conscience of 
our people. This being an impossibility in this case 
renders it improbable that even the experiment will 
ever be tried. 

The objections, however, to this plan, were it inau- 
gurated, are many In the first place, one of the no- 
blest and most beneficial sentiments in the human 
breast is the love of home. This sentiment is closely 
related to the ownership of that home. This owning 
of a home on the part of any man has a tendency to 
make him a conservative member of society. Then 
it ministers to the disposition to improve and beauti- 
fy the home of the family. The experience of the 
race thus far is that the ownership of land in common, 
even though the improvements be individual proper- 
ty, is an interference with this home sentiment on the 
one hand, and totally subversive of the tendency to 
improve the premises on the other Go to the Indian 
Territory and see the workings of this principle. Ex- 
cellent farm lands — with their farm-houses, barns, etc., 
mere temporary shells — show the timidity of man in 
putting improvements on property unless the title is 



Tite Revolution Proposed by Henry George. 123 

invested in himself. Nor is this the result of their 
being in the hands of Indians, who care for none of 
these things. Many fine farms are in the hands of 
cultivated people, in part or wholly white. 

Now cross the Red River into Texas, and note the 
difference in farm and village improvements, and take 
another object lesson in the same study of human nat- 
ure to the same purport. 

If the surplus revenue of government derived from 
the immense tax on land is devoted to the support of 
the indigent classes, the result will be to vastly in- 
crease the pauperism of the nation. Mr. George 
talks as if poverty was to be no more, and that be- 
cause of the direct distribution of this surplus to the 
needy classes. ("Progress and Poverty," pp. 395, 
396.) The pauper spirit is one of the most hateful 
and demoralizing things to which man is addicted. It 
is itself a vice. It destroys manliness and independ- 
ence, and makes man a dependent without spirit and 
without any noble quality. As a pastor, familiar 
with poverty and the efforts to relieve it, I regard the 
spirit of the pauper as one of the things to be most 
dreaded and avoided by the individual man, and most 
earnestly worked against by the State and by all who 
are interested in the development of the race. And 
every one who is at all familiar with pauperism 
knows that it is increased in direct proportion to the 
efforts made to provide for the wants of men without 
requiring work as an equivalent. The free distribu- 
tion of food and necessities on the occasion of great 
calamities, such as that at Johnstown, has demon- 
strated that such free gifts, even in these extreme 
cases, are demoralizing. 



121 Man, Moneij, and the Bible. 

The chief difficulty, however, is in the management 
of this immense estate by the government officials. 
The existing executive would have to determine the 
questions of the amounts to be distributed to the 
beneficiaries, and who shall be those beneficiaries. 
The dift'erent political parties would vie with each oth- 
er in courting the floating vote by pandering to them. 
Then the fiscal officers would handle immense sums 
of money. All this would afford occasion for great 
corruption and wide-spread demoralization. Not yet 
has the government arisen into whose hands such 
power could be safely intrusted. Nor does the pres- 
ent state of political ethics justify the hope that it 
will speedily rise. 

Nor has Mr. George proved that such a confisca- 
tion of land would result in the equalization of dis- 
tribution. Many, perhaps most, of the causes of the 
present inequality in sharing the benefits of increased 
wealth would still exist. Perhaps the chief of these 
is the superior talent for organization possessed by 
some individuals over their fellows. Sometimes a 
man organizes a mercantile establishment, as Wana- 
maker or Stewart; sometimes he gambles successfully 
in stocks, as Fisk; sometimes he organizes railroad 
enterprises, as Gould or Huntington; sometimes he 
shows his superiority by inventions, as Field or Bell 
or Edison; sometimes" by eminence in professional 
life, as Evarts or Butler. Nor would the remedy 
reach the most dissatisfied set of laborers we have, 
such as the railroad hands, etc. 

Still less would this remedy have any effect in re- 
moving the greatest cause of poverty and suffering 
that we have— i. e., vice and crime. In fact, the very 



The Bevolution Proposed hij Henry George. 125 

difficulties of the present state of things, the small 
margin of the workmen this side of actual want, makes 
against vice, as it insures such immediate fearful 
consequences to follow the vicious course. But if 
we were to succeed in putting the laboring-man as 
far from the immediate consequences of sin as the 
fashionable dude now is, it would increase and not 
diminish vice. This statement accords with the best 
economic thinking, and with the economic history so 
far as that has been recorded. 

While such provision for support would postpone 
the immediate consequences of vice and diminish the 
deterrent effects of those consequences, yet it is not 
in the power of man to remove these consequences. 
They would come to the front in spite of every effort. 
The consequences of vice would be what they have 
always been: misery and woe and want. A might- 
ier power than men has decreed that this hateful 
brood shall follow in the wake of sin, and man has 
never wasted his time more foolishly than in his ef- 
forts to abrogate the laws of the Almighty. 

I will not close this chapter without saying that Mr. 
George has done much good by his writings, and has 
thrown much light upon many problems. He has 
contributed to the coming of the true light, which 
we all feel is dawning, as much as any other man. 
His single tax would be a great advance in the right 
direction if it could be put in operation. In fact, it 
would put the burden of government upon those who 
as things are now constituted have the greatest ad- 
vantage, as he has demonstrated — ?'. e., the rent gath- 
erers. Nor would this be any disadvantage to our 
farmers, as the concealing of their personal property 



126 Man, Money, and the Bible. 

by capitalists and the tariff, which works directly 
against them, make the present system much more 
burdensome to them than the single tax would be; 
provided, always, that the amount so raised would be 
only " sufficient for the support of government eco- 
nomically administered." 

This single tax would go far toward giving all an 
equal start in the race of life, just as the horse-racers 
equalize their steeds by the adjustment of their 
weights. 

This is in accord with the scriptural rule: " Of him 
that hath much, much will be required." 

If we could have a land tax and a tax graded on in- 
comes, we would have this principle put into almost 
perfect operation. This would interfere with no 
property rights, and introduce no violent alienation 
in the realm of politics. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

The Revolution Proposed in Socialism. 

LET us first get some idea of the revolution which 
socialism proposes to bring about. As clear a 
statement of it as I know is the following, made by 
Professor Ely in his "Introduction to Political 
Economy: " 

Socialism means coercive co-operalion not merely for under- 
takings of a monopolistic nature, but for all productive enter- 
prises. Socialists seek the establishment of industrial democracy 
through the instrumentality of the State, which they hold to be 
the only way whereby it can be obtained. Socialism contem- 
plates an expansion of the business functions of government un- 
til all business is absorbed. All business is then to be regulated 
by the people in their organic capacity, each man and each 
woman having the same rights which any other man or any 
other woman has. Our political organization is to become an 
economical industrial organization, controlled by universal suf- 
frage. Socialism will make civil service employees of all citizens, 
and will remunerate them in such manner as shall, in view of 
all the circumstances, appear to the public authorities to be just. 
Private property in profit-producing capital and rent-producing 
land is to be abolished, and private property in income is to be 
retained, but with this restriction : that it shall not be employed 
in productive enterprises. What is desired, then, is not, as is 
supposed by the uninformed, a division of property, but a con- 
centration of property. The socialists do not complain because 
productive property is too much concentrated, but because it is 
not sufficiently concentrated. Socialists consequently rejoice in 
the formation of trusts and combinations, holding that they are 
a development in the right direction. 

There are four elements in socialism, namely: First, the com- 
mon ownership of the means of production; second, the com- 

(127) 



128 Ma7i, Monet/, and the Bible. 

mon management of the means of production; third, the distri- 
bution of the annual products of industry by common authority; 
fourth, private projierty in income. Socially ts make no war ujDon 
capital, stiictly speaking. No one but a fool could do such a 
thing. What socialists object to is not capital, but the private 
capitalist. They desire to nationalize capital, and to abolish 
capitalists as a distinct claws by making everybody, as a member 
of the community, a capitalist — that is, a partial owner of all the 
capital in the country. 

It ought not to be hard to picture socialism to one's self. 
Government owns the post-office; most governments own the 
telegraph ; nearly all own the wagon roads ; some own the canals 
and railways; many governments own factories; probably every 
national government does at least a little manufacturing; most 
governments cultivate forests, and some cultivate more or less 
land. We have only to imagine an extension of what already 
exists, until government cultivates all land, manufactures all 
goods, conducts all exchanges, and carries on, in short, every 
productive enterprise — and we have socialism, pure and simple. 
(Pp. 240-242.) 

Mr. Bellamy's "Looking Backward" is a fanciful 
and interesting presentation of the hopes, as well as 
the principles, of socialism. Socialism is not a sense- 
less cry for a part of existing wealth, but it is a phil- 
osophical arraignment of the present basis of distri- 
bution — ^a system remorselessly logical and based upon 
the accepted axioms of political economy. It is, too, 
in close sympathy with humanity's needs. 

Yet I believe that careful scrutiny of its principles 
and purposes will discover that they are impractica- 
ble, unless we could first change the nature of man. 
I will give the reader the reasons which have led the 
writer to that conclusion. 

As Mr. George's proposal partook largely of the 
nature of socialism, so every objection urged against 
his views is still more forcible against this farther 



The Revolution Proposed in Socialism. 129 

stretcli of the same principles. Leaving out the diffi- 
culty of inaugurating this revolution (for it is evident 
that it will only come when the present order of things 
becomes unendurable), I will confine my objections to 
the system as it would Le if once fully inaugurated. 

And, first, there is the same old difficulty of com- 
mitting so much power to the hands of the govern- 
ment. This is no chimera of the brain, conjured up 
to frighten the unthinking; it is real. The world has 
never yet seen the government pure, disinterested, 
honest, impartial, and capable enough to manage the 
vast trust that would be confided to them. The army 
of supervisors would hcve almost unlimited power to 
continue themselves in office. The party in power 
could take measures to intrench themselves in power 
until it would become almost impossible to ever dis- 
lodge them. Inch by inch there would grow up a 
governing class, distinct from all others and assum- 
ing a superiority to all others; and inch by inch this 
class would obtain advantages, until the great body of 
the people would become their vassals. 

But the great trouble comes from the fact that the 
mass of the people would not be prepared for the sud- 
den change in their condition. These would be of 
two kinds. Those from whom property had been 
taken in this sudden change would be one. While 
these might not deserve much pity, as they would nofc 
be dejjrived of any thing but the useless luxuries of 
life, yet they would constitute a vast dissatisfied ele- 
ment in the body politic —always a serious thing in a 
government. The second class would be something 
much more serious. They would consist of those who 
from the lowest condition would suddenly be placed 
9 



130 Mmi, Money, and the Bible. 

in as good a condition as any other man. Even if 
this was not a condition of great luxury, it would be 
a vast change to them; vaster than at first glance it 
might appear; for conditions are relative, and as 
these would have come from the lowest condition, 
where vast multitudes were in advance of them, and 
liad now reached a point where they were in as good 
a condition as any, it would be a rise enough to turn 
the head of even the well-educated and the conserva- 
tive. But these would be neither the one nor the 
other: they would be ignorant, many of them vicious 
and depraved. The results of this sudden change 
would be morally disastrous in the extreme. Have 
you noticed the result of the sudden rise in worldly 
prosperity upon character? In how few instances 
was it beneficial ? In how many instances was it dis- 
astrous ? Now try this experiment upon a world-wide 
scale, and the result must be something terrible to 
contemplate. How many of this vast band would 
simply take the improved condition as a vantage- 
ground to indulge vices which before lay beyond their 
reach? Are we told that this change of condition will 
extirpate these vices? AVe were once told the same 
in regard to education. It has not proved true in that 
case; neither will it prove true in this case. Im- 
provement in the condition, of man, without a corre- 
sponding improvement in his moral status, is of little 
advantage to him or to society; in fact, in the majority 
of cases it is positively hurtful. This is not a re-assuring 
view of humanity, but nothing is gained toward solv- 
ing our problem by leaving out the most important fac- 
tor in it. It may facilitate the reaching of an apparent 
solution, but it will insure its being an erroneous one. 



The Bevolution Proposed in Socialism, 131 

This tendency of wliicli we have just spoken is in 
addition to the pauper spirit, and it reaches a larger 
number than the last, but it leaves the pauper spirit 
to flourish in this rich soil. The pauper spirit is the 
desire to live off the world without giving an equiva- 
lent in work or money. It says: "The world owes 
me a living." Now as society, in this new arrange- 
ment, would be organized on this very principle ; and 
as there would be provisions made to support the in- 
digent, it would all result in the nurture and increase 
of this unfortunate, helpless, aud dangerous class. 
Of course there would be efforts made to circumvent 
them, but our tramp genus is very fertile in expedi- 
ents; he is a camp follower, and it will be found hard 
to make him do his pnrt in the industrial army. 

Nor is it only in reference to these classes that so- 
cialism would have an unfortunate effect upon char- 
acter. All who have studied man, and the influences 
that help and hinder in the formation of his charac- 
ter, must see that this interference with liberty on one 
side, and this dependence upon government, would 
destroy individuality. 

After all, unless there was a ^radical change in 
man's nature as well as his condition, there would 
remain in the world after these changes as much of 
sin, vice, crime, dissatisfaction, and trouble as there 
now is. All these revolutions but turn the patient 
over on his sound side ; yet the knots in his hard bed, 
which will make another sore spot even worse, are not 
removed. The whole effort to devise a patent-right 
adjustment of mankind that will do away with all 
trouble and friction, while the natures of the parties 
remain unchanged, mvist ever end in failure. 



132 Man^ Monet/, and the Bible, 

The problem is too difficult, tlie factors entering into 
it too many, and too many of them are unknown, for 
any human intellect to master beforehand the result. 

The difficulty we incur in each of these movements 
is human wickedness. Now this is precisely what 
causes the trouble in the present order of things. If 
it were not for wickedness, the earth might be ren- 
dered a paradise under almost any government, or 
with almost any system of property holding; and so 
long as wickedness survives we are going to have 
trouble and friction. 

Nevertheless, the agitation of these reforms has 
done good. It shows us more clearly what is the 
chief difficulty in the way of human progress, no 
matter along" what road w^e propose to advance. 
These difficulties may be generalized as wickedness. 

Again, they present to us a goal of universal lielp- 
fulness and brotherly love, toward which we are 
urged to make our way. This must have an uplift 
to it. 

Then the dissatisfaction with present things, so far 
as they are hurtful, and the active effort to better 
them, are hopeful and helpful in themselves. When 
dealing with the individual sinner, we always consider 
him in a hopeful state when he feels the guilt 
and helplessness of his condition. He is then in the 
proper state of mind to fly to a Saviour. So, when I 
find the world awake to the fact that it needs some- 
thing, and that it needs it bad, I conclude that the 
world is getting in the state of mind to accept in 
earnest her only hope of real salvation from her diffi- 
culties: the application of the principles of Christ to 
the practical affairs of life. 



CHAPTEE Y. 

Christianity or Socialism. 

WHILE the writer sees tlie objections to social- 
ism, wliicli have been urged, and otliers wliicli 
it is not necessary to present here; still I believe that 
it must be either socialism or Christianity actually 
put to practice which is to be the final social revolu- 
tion among men. These two are mutually exclusive, 
and between them they cover the whole field, leaving 
no room for any other theory. 

If Christianity be not true, and we take the princi- 
ples of materialistic economists as true, and build our 
right to property upon the basis of personal labor 
alone, then we are forced to the conclusion that 
property is unjustly distributed. On this basis we 
cannot defend the right to land, or of monopoly, or 
of bequest, and only to a limited extent of inheritance. 
In fact, the right to the greater part of the immense 
fortunes of our day would be swept away. 

Socialism and Christianity alike declare the soli- 
darity of the human race and the brotherhood of 
man. Alike, too, they declare that all things belong 
to the race and not the individual. Socialism makes 
the race take charge of its estate through govern- 
ment. And socialism endeavors to equalize the con- 
dition of men. 

Christianity is essentially a system dealing with 

. individuals, and holding them to a strict account. 

Christianity says that all things belong to God, and 

(133) 



134: Man^ Monetj, and the Bible. 

ilmi lie bestows tliem upon men. It is a system of 
individualism; but it makes each individual God's 
direct agent to work for the good of men, of the race. 

Now if we reject socialism and claim property un- 
der title from God, then we must take tbat title with 
the limitations God has put upon it. This makes you 
a mere trustee to use that property for the good of 
the race. This puts the responsibility for the right 
use of jjroperty upon every one to whom he has com- 
mitted any of this world's goods. 

If we reject Christianity, there is no logical basis 
for the defense of property rights as now existing. 
If we accept Christianity, and claim our property un- 
der its principles, then we are self-convicted of un- 
fairness if we simply use that for our own pleasure 
which Avas committed to us in trust for the race. To 
be honest we must hold this property as a sacred 
trust, and subject to all the regulations of Him from 
whom it is derived. 

Let me illustrate this position of the rich of our 
day: We will supj^ose that A is a rich Western farm- 
er, who has several farms. B is an acquaintance of 
his from the older States, who comes to him without 
means. A rents B a farm in a neighboring county, 
A furnishing the teams, provisions for man and beast, 
farm utensils, seeds, and every thing needed to make 
a crop. B and his boys furnish the labor, and the 
two are to divide the crops equally. B is put in pos- 
session of the farm, and months go by. At last A 
concludes to visit B, to see how prospects for harvest 
are. He drives over; and when he gets in the neigh- 
borhood, he is surprised to find the fields all lying 
fallow, and not a sign of a crop, or of any work being 



Christianity or Socialism. 135 

done. He calls at the house; and Mrs. B, dressed ex- 
pensively and handsomely, meets him and conducts 
into a room elegantly furnished. A is bewildered. 
He knew that when the family came they had abso- 
lutely nothing. He inquires for B and the boys, and 
learns that they are off on a hunt. He asks why no 
crop has been planted, and learns that they found 
enough on the place to last them for a year or so, 
and hence it was not necessary for them to woi'k. He 
learns that the teams and utensils have been sold to 
supply the expensive furniture which he sees around. 
In fact, he learns that his old friend has been treat- 
ing every thing as if it belonged to himself. Do you 
suppose that A would stand such treatment? Well, 
that is precisely the way the rich man, who uses his 
wealth simply to gratify his own tastes, and to minis- 
ter to his own pleasures, is treating God. Nor is it 
the Maker alone who is wronged. As we have seen, 
the race has an interest in that estate, which has been 
entirely ignored. No wonder the poor feel that the 
fair thing is not being done to them. 

So, whichever position we take, we see tliat as 
things are now adjusted and managed they are not 
on a just basis. And all are beginning to feel this. 
"When this is the case — when humanity feel and know 
that an injustice is existing, we may look for a change. 
If we change from the present order, it must, as we 
have shown, be in one of two directions: toward so- 
cialism or toward practical Christianity. If we take 
the route to socialism, we plunge into an experiment, 
and into the dark. 

The only light lies toward Christ, where we will 
have the guidance of him not one of whose sayings 



136 Man, Money, and the Bible. 

or laws have been proved false or erroneous by nine- 
teen centuries of experience. Here, however, is where 
we strike a very important question: What is applied 
Christianity? Is it the making of all that a man can 
by grinding his employees, by trampling nnder foot 
all mercy for those that work for him, and then giv- 
ing away some trifles of his profits in promiscuous 
and careless charity? This does more harm than 
good. Is the smallness of the amounts given the 
cause of the failure? By no means. If these 
amounts were largely increased, it would result in 
harm rather than good. Count Tolstoi, in his book 
" What to Do? " tells of his efforts to distribute, after 
personal investigation in Rzhandoff house, the very 
lowest quarter in Moscow, to the necessities of the 
occupants, of the fact that there was much less dis- 
tress than he expected, and of his utter failure to do 
any good. He took many names of those who wanted 
help, and here is what he says of the result: "I will 
mention here that, oat of all these persons whom I 
noted down, I really did not help a single one, in 
spite of the fact that for some of them that was done 
which they desired, and that which, apparently, 
might have raised them. Three of their number 
were particularly well known to me. All three, after 
repeated rises and falls, are now in precisely the same 
situation that they were in three years ago." 

He was a good, conscientious man, trying with a 
large estate to do good. He came to the conclusion 
not only that he did no good, but that this careless 
giving was not good. He says: "I had gone so far 
astray that this taking of thousands from the poor 
with one hand, and this flinging of kopeks with the 



Christianitij or Socialism* 137 

other, to those whom the whim moved me to give, I 
called good." 

Nor is Tolstoi the only one who looks upon what is 
ordinarily called "charity" as a mistake. 

I think that possibly this idea is carried too far. 
The day has not yet come when each of us is not 
called upon to do a good deal of this personal giving, 
and Christianity demands that we do this whenever 
necessary. But this merely palliates the disease of 
society in special and concrete cases. It is no reme- 
dy for the disease; and, carried too far, it augments 
the trouble. 

AVell, is it " applied Christianity " to turn over our 
spare means to the Church to manage for mankind? 
The Church is God's chosen vessel to bear to man- 
kind the word of life, and the Church has a right to 
expect from those who have means all that she needs 
to accomplish her work. She can draw her checks 
upon men for houses in which to preach the gospel, 
for proper support for her ministers, for means by 
which to carry the gospel to the "earth's remotest 
bounds," and for the help of the afflicted; but it 
will interfere with her legitimate work for her to at- 
tempt too much. It is not her duty, nor a part of 
her legitimate work, for her to administer the surplus 
wealth of mankind for the common good. The solu- 
tion of the question, then, is not in putting men's 
surplus "into the hands of the Church. "It is not 
reason that w^e should leave the word of God to serve 
tables." 

Christianity is essentially a system of individuals 
united together in a great co-operative society whose 
binding cord is love, in whose whole scheme the indi- 



138 Man^ Mo}ieij, and the Bible. 

vidual is thrown upon his own resources, and each 
individual is held to a strict account for the discharge 
of his duties. There are those now, as we have seen, 
who object to this system of individualism, and who 
want to substitute for it a system of communism, in 
which individual resjjonsibility will be substituted by 
governmental resi^onsibility. We have reviewed this 
proposal, and endeavored to point out the objections 
against it. Now let us examine the system of indi- 
vidualism, which God seems to have chosen by his 
Providence in the world's history, as well as in his 
Word. It has been attacked as totally inadequate to 
meet the needs of tlie great aggregations of men in- 
cident to the deveJopments of modern times. Will 
these objections hold when subjected to close scruti- 
ny? Are the disadvantages of individualism offset 
by advantages that can be found in another system? 
In this inquiry it is necessary for us to keep in view 
the end wdiich we hope to reach by our system. An 
examination of the plans of communists shows that 
they propose to increase the amount of material goods 
held by each individual of the masses, and they pre- 
sume that such increase of possessions will improve 
the character of the individual himself. On the other 
hand, Christianity, as the system that God has chosen 
for man, proposes as its chief aim to improve the 
character of each man, and leave him with his aroused 
manhood and quickened energies to improve his own 
material condition. The bare statement of the ends 
proposed by each system, and of the philosophy upon 
which they are constructed, seems to me to display 
the tremendous advantage of the divinely chosen one 
oyer the proposed improvement by man. God has 



Christianity or Socialism. 139 

revealed that "a man's life consisteth not in the 
abundance of the things which lie possesseth." It is 
the "life" which God values, and not its environment; 
and it is this which is the real valuable quality among 
men. That system, then, which best deters and re- 
strains man from the courses that degrade and destroy 
his life, and which best impels and stimulates him to 
develop and improve, is the system best adapted to 
man in his present condition. This is precisely, as I 
claim, w^hat individualism does. 

In the present order of things man is deterred from 
evil courses because those courses lead quickly to 
personal suffering and distress. • This is true of all; 
but, as a law, it presses with varying force upon dif- 
ferent classes of men. Those who have property are 
able to postpone the financial and social effects of 
dissipation much longer than the poor man. But 
this advantage is offset by the greater physical and 
moral ravages wrought in the individual himself. 
Adam Smith, the father of political economy, noticed 
the operation of these punishments fixed in the nat- 
ure of things, not only to deter from evil courses the 
common people, but to act as a help to their con- 
sciences to raise the standard of right living; and he 
also notices the relaxation of these punishments in 
the case of the upper classes. AVe have only to sub- 
stitute the words " poor " and " rich " for the terms 
of equal import in his argument to make all he says 
aj)plicable to our time and country. In the discus- 
sion of the subject of a State Church, he says: 

In every civilized society, in every society where the distinc- 
tion of ranks has once been completely established, there have 
been always two different schemes or systems of morality cur- 



140 Man, Moneij, and the Bible, 

rent at the same time ; of which the one may be called the strict 
or austere, theother the liberal or, if you will, the loose system. 
Tlie former is generally admired and revered by the common peo- 
ple; the latter is commonly more esteemed or adopted by what 
are called people of fashion. The degree of disapprobation 
with which we ought to mark the vices of levity, the vices which 
are apt to arise from great prosperity and from the excess of 
gaycty and good-humor, seems to constitute the principal dis- 
tinction between those two opposite schemes or systems. In 
the liberal or loose system luxury, wanton and even disorderly 
mirth, the pursuit of pleasure to some degree of intemperance, 
the breach of chastity, at least in one of the two sexes, etc., 
provided they are not accompanied with gross indecency, and 
do not lead to falsehood or injustice, are generally treated with 
a good deal of indulgence, and are easily either excused or par- 
doned altogether. In the austere system, on the contrary, those 
excesses are regarded with the utmost abhorrence and detesta- 
tion. The vices of levity are always ruinous to the common 
people; and a single week's thoughtlessness and dissipation is 
often sufficient to undo a poor workman forever, and to drive 
him through despair upon committing the most enormous 
crimes. The wiser and better sort of the common people, there- 
fore, have always the utmost abhorrence and detestation of such 
excesses, wliich, their experience tells them are so immediately 
fatal to people of their condition. The disorder and extrava- 
gance of several years, on the contrary, will not always ruin a 
man of fashion; and people of that rank are very apt to consid- 
er the power of indulging in some degree of excess as one of 
the advantages of their fortune, and the liberty of doing so with- 
out censure or reproach as one of tlie privileges which belong 
to their station. In people of their own station, therefore, they 
regard such excesses with but a small degree of disapprobation, 
and censure them either very slightly or not at all. (" Wealth 
ofNations,"p. G24.) 

This shows a clear discernment of the effect of the 
present scheme of things upon men's characters and 
upon their material welfare; a discernment far in 
advance of those philosophers of our day who in- 



Christianity or Socialism, 141 

sist that poverty produces crime, and wlio tliink to 
remove vice from among men by putting it in their 
power to indulge in it. And is not much of the envy 
of the rich, and much of the anxious longing to so 
change the present order as to make us all on an 
equality, all practically wealthy, the outcome of a be- 
lief that considers "the power of indulging in some 
degree of excess, . . . and the liberty of doing so with- 
out censure or reproach," as one of the most desirable 
of earthly things? But what thinker does not see that 
this is not to be desired at all? The Psalmist saw of 
old that the disadvantage of the rich was that " their 
feet were set in slippery places," their position in- 
volved extra moral risks. Yet it is the very disad- 
vantage of riches, perhaps, which is most longed for. 
And it is one of the chief advantages which poverty 
offers to humanity, the wall which it raises against 
vice, that constitutes the very ground of the fight 
that many make against it. There is a poverty, to be 
sure, that is a mother to crime. This is that state of 
utter wretchedness in which all individual dignity, 
worth, and character are lost in a mass of utter ruin, 
which w^e call the criminal classes. This is that aw- 
ful slough of misery, that hell on earth, which is it- 
self the effect of wickedness, toward which the wicked 
of all classes are surely slipping, in which all the linea- 
ments of manhood are eliminated from humanity, 
and only the beast survives. This hell can only be 
filled up by removing the w^ickedness that has dug it. 
Nor is it more of a curse than of a pest-house in 
which the morally infected of the race are confined. 

Not only does the present order of things deter 
from vice, but it offers the most splendid prizes to 



142 Man^ Money, and the Bible. 

the individual as a reward for personal effort and 
worthiness. And here the position of honorable 
poverty, being most advantageous for the formation 
of character, has greatly the advantage over wealth 
as a point from which to start to win all the greatest 
prizes that are offered to man in this world. This is 
fair, too; for the disadvantage of poverty in its great- 
er liability to drop immediately into a state of wretch- 
edness has already been noticed. In this way the 
relative advantages of each class in society have been 
equalized. It is not necessary for me to prove to any 
man of observation that it is a real advantage to be a 
poor man if a man proposes to work for any of the 
noblest and best premiums which society offers to 
true worth. Nor is great wealth absent from among 
these prizes. How many instances might each of us 
present from our own knowledge of individuals who 
have made their way from the most disadvantageous 
position to the ownership of large fortune and com- 
manding influence! I remember one instance of one 
of the richest men in Texas who started life as a day 
laborer at fifty cents a day, and whp made with his 
own hands the furniture he and his wife commenced 
housekeeping on. When I came to Dallas, Tex., in 
1875, one of the most unique characters of that West- 
ern town was a man of middle age with a basket of 
cakes on his arm, who went up and down the streets, 
crying in a peculiarly shrill voice: "Nice cream 
cakes, one for a nickel, two for a dime." I have 
watched this gentleman (for he is a gentleman) rise 
in the world with astonishment and pleasure. I saw 
him get a bakery, then a store, then large amounts 
of real estate, then a factory; and then his name be- 



Christianity or Socialism. 143 

gan to appear ou all sorts of bank and manufacturing 
boards, and at the head of most of the great enter- 
prises of the city. Such instances as these two show 
the possibility before every enterprising young man, 
however poor he may be. Who can estimate the im- 
petus that the example of such success gives to the 
thousands of struggling workmen, and the aggregate 
effect of their efforts in pushing forward the car of 
civilization? But wealth is the smallest and the least 
probable jDrize that the world holds out to the indus- 
trious young man. All the prizes of scholarship, of 
oratory, of political power, of military glory, of eccle- 
siastical usefulness and prominence, of benevolent 
enterprise, and of professional success, are more 
readily in the grasp of the poor than the rich. Yet 
none of these splendid prizes lie beyond the reach 
of either class. All who have the native endowment, 
wdiich nature distributes impartially, and who will 
exercise the industry and self-denial necessary, may 
reach the point of excellence and of success. And 
he who has no chance to master adverse fate, who is 
compelled to labor under the burdens of poverty and 
obscurity all his days, has yet in his grasp the very 
highest prize that can be drawn : that of moral excel- 
lence. There are no circumstances where man can- 
not maintain his integrity; and the greater the diffi- 
culties under which he labors, and the mightier the 
obstacles he overcomes, the nobler the virtue which 
is the product of the struggle. 

Now if we extend these lines of man's decline as 
the result of sin until they end in a real hell, and the 
line o£ his exaltation as the reward of virtue until it 
ends at the throne of God, we will have the scheme 



144 Man^ Money, and the Bible. 

of our world as outlined iu the Bible. If we keep our 
eye fixed upon tlie fact that character is the chief 
thing had in view, we are compelled to believe that 
this scheme is the best possible for man in his pres- 
ent condition. As man advances out of his present 
moral night, he will more and more come under the 
influence of that love and all the principles which 
Christianity advocates, and which will bind the race 
in closer and closer bonds of mutual co-operation and 
helpfulness; so that we will find a state where all the 
advantages of communism are found in combination 
with all the advantages of individualism. We will 
thus have industrial democracy in its best form. 



PART IV. 

WHAT CAN WE DO TO PROMOTE REFORMATION IN 

MONEY MATTERS? 

10 (145) 



CHAPTEK I. 

What Can Individuals Do? 

WE have seen the imminence o£ revolution in 
the methods of property-holding and distri- 
bution, and we have seen the necessity for reforma- 
tion. We have already discussed the "various schemes 
of revolution proposed by various classes of thinkers, 
and have tried to point out the reasons why they do 
not meet the case; and we have come to the conclu- 
sion that " applied Christianity " is the only remedy, 
and we have seen somewhat what is not "applied 
Christianity." It remains to inquire if there is any 
thing that can be done at present, besides the effort 
to spread Christianity over the world, to improve our 
condition. What can the individual member of soci- 
ety, anxious to see things upon a more equitable basis, 
do to bring about a better state? 

1. What can a poor man who is a Christian do? 
There are few of us who are in a more favorable posi- 
tion to lend a hand to aid in bringing about abetter con- 
dition of things. Let not such a one suppose that he 
is too insignificant to- have any influence for good. 
He ought to be a potent factor. He should endeavor 
to square his own life by the principles set forth in 
Part II., and so put his influence on the right side of 
things. Especially is it necessary for him to realize 
that moral good and not wealth, character and not 
happiness, is the chief thing to be valued. Then he 
ought to remember what is said about contentment. 
He should not allow any prejudice to arise between 

(147) 



X 



148 Mem, Money, and the Bible. 

liim and any class of his fellow-citizens. Especially 
he should not allow any of these things to make him 
feel out of place in the Church of God, or to get out 
of harmony with it in his feelings. Leave Him to 
whom vengeance belongs, and who is the judge of all 
men, to deal with recreant children. Let him put 
forth all his strength to raise his family and to imbue 
his comrades wdtli the principles of Christianity. 
Our poor Christians have as much right in the Church 
of Christ as our millionaires, and they should feel this 
way about it. They should not permit the rich, even 
if they wanted to (and I have seen but little evidence 
that they do), to drive them from their place in the 
kingdom of our common Lord. They should attend 
services, dressed neatly and cleanly, and should make 
themselves at home there. They should not demand 
any petting or help. They should be independent 
and manly, respecting themselves, and they will com- 
mand the respect and the love of their brethren. I 
have never been pastor where some of the poor of the 
Church did not command as much respect, and their 
voice was not as influential, as the average member. 
Brethren in humble circumstances, the future de- 
pends upon the prevalence of Christianity, and the 
success of Christianity depends largely upon you. 
Do not let the false cry of "Lo, here! " or " Lo, there is 
a saviour! " deceive you. Christ is our hope. Do not 
allow any one to throw your influence against the 
Church. Remember that in all your walk you have 
to maintain the respectability and the amiability of 
Christianity. 

2. What can a poor man who is not a Christian do? 
He can become a Christian, of course; and in this 



What Can Individuals Do? 149 

way not only help forward tlie reform, but save liis 
own soul. But if lie does not take such a step, he 
can recognize Christianity as an ally, and not an en- 
emy. If he will so treat her, it will be an immense 
addition to the strength of the Church and of the 
poor men of our nation. But the only complete rem- 
edy is complete identification of interests by becom- 
ing a member of the Church. The mightiest engine- 
ry on earth can be readily captured by the poor man, 
and used legitimately to advance his influence, if he 
does not let some foolish man persuade him that 
some popgun of man's devising is a more efi'ective 
instrument. Membership in the Church will do a 
great deal for any poor man, as Adam Smith points 
out. One of the great difficulties of the laborers of 
our day is that the individual is lost in a mass where 
his conduct is neither observed nor cared about by the 
public. In such circumstances he is apt to think 
that there is no matter what he does. In other words, 
he is in danger of losing the mighty restraining influ- 
ence of public opinion. Now if the individual laborer 
becomes a member of the Church — not nominally, 
but really — taking an interest in all her services and 
becoming identified with her work, by this very fact 
he has emerged from the general mass; he has indi- 
vidualized himself. Henceforth the eyes of his fel- 
low-members are on him, and so are the eyes of all 
his associates who learn of his profession; so that he 
is immediately surrounded by that pressure of pub- 
lic opinion which is beneficial to men in all classes 
and conditions. Individual dignity and individual 
worthiness are what our workmen need more than or- 
ganization. The addition of cyphers produces noth- 



150 Man^ Money, and the Bible, 

ing but cyphers. Each workman has it in his jDOwer 
to make himself a force in the body politic. The 
great ingredient in this, however, is moral worth. I 
do not mean to say a word against the combination of 
workmen in societies intended to advance their mu- 
tual interests and to improve their membership. Such 
societies are good; they give a public opinion, the ne- 
cessity of which I have spoken. The society becomes 
interested in the public conduct of each of its mem- 
bers, and will exercise a good influence over him. 
Then the debates, etc., incident to their meetings will 
stimulate his thinking and help to develop him. Then 
the direct iufluence of these societies upon employers 
will generally be good and not evil. 

I am especially anxious that there be no antagonism 
between the workmen of our nation and the Church. 
Their interests are one; they are mutually dependent, 
and have only good and not evil to expect from each 
other. It will indeed be the height of folly for them 
to allow their forces to be divided in this fight for the 
rights of humanity. The Church is the only power 
on earth which can mediate between the poor and the 
rich. At her altars they both meet. She can lay her 
hands upon both sides of the controversy, and can 
authoritatively declare to each the commands of God. 
And the solution of our difficulties .depends upon both 
sides of the controversy uniting in some agreement 
that will be equally aclvantageous and honorable. 
There is nothing to be hoped for in the direction of 
either of these classes conquering the other and de- 
stroying it. That would be humanity's loss, and not 
gain. The Church may not be doing all that she 
ought, and many think that she ought to do things 



What Can Individuals Do? 151 

which lie beyond her province. For a discussion of 
her part in this great work I refer you to the last 
chapter of this book. All I am after here is to j)re- 
vent, as far as I may be able, the attempt to divorce 
the Church of God and the laboring-man. They are 
allies, not enemies. 

3. What can a rich man, who is a Christian, do? 
Upon him, at the present juncture, rests the heaviest 
responsibility of all. It is to him we must look large- 
ly to jjrove to the world that our religion is more 
than a name. He it is who can show that Christian- 
ity is adapted to the solution of all the problems of 
our civilization, is the product of a wisdom far above 
the capacity of man, of a wisdom that " sees the end 
from the beginning." And what ought he to do? 
Live like a Christian, that is alL But his Christi- 
anity must enter into all his business and all his re- 
lationships. We refer him to the principles laid 
down in Part II., and call on him to embody them in 
his life. We have already said that it is not neces- 
sary to stop making money, or to give all his money 
away. I now say that if his talent is that of an or- 
ganizer of legitimate enterprises, if he can prepare 
the way for the profitable employment of large num- 
bers of men, then that talent is not only a rare one, 
but one of the most useful among men. He would 
d(^ a great wrong to let such a talent lie idle. But let 
him remember that it is the employment of the men 
and thus furnishing them the opportunity to make a 
good living for themselves and families, a far better 
thing than supporting them directly by his charitj^ 
which makes his a great work, and not the profit he 
can contrive to make out of the enterjorise for him- 



152 Man, Money, and the Bible. 

self. Let him remember tliat every one of his em- 
ployees is a brother, is to be loved as a brother, and 
to be treated as one. Let every Christian employer, 
from the lady with one servant up, remember that 
their employees are human, are brethren, and estab- 
lish as cordial as possible relations with them. It is 
through the heart that we reach mankind. A kind 
word of personal interest spoken will do far more 
than some real favor bestowed upon a person as a 
sense of duty, toward winning their love. 

Right here in this bridgeless chasm, which has 
been dug between the employer and the employee, is 
the chief trouble that faces us. And T do not hesitate 
to say, that our old Southern slavery, for which the 
world has so abused us, where it took on its kindlier 
phases, w^ith its cordial love between master and slave, 
with the slave a part of the very family life, was 
nearer the right Christian relation than any thing 
now existing in our coantry. Nothing can be worse 
than indifference but hate, and indifference will soon 
become hate. This treatment of all who work for 
you as though they were machines without feeling 
and without souls is a crying sin and shame. " On 
what meat has this our Ca3sar fed that he has grown 
so great?" You, as a Christian, must get off your 
stilts and manifest a brother's interest in your broth- 
er, though he does happen to serve you. That does 
not prove that you are his superior. And let me say 
right here that nothing can be done, unless we can 
find some common platform where we cannot only 
meet but love one another, but rush right on in the 
way we are going, and which is leading to swift so- 
cial destruction. 



Vrniat Can Individuals Do? 153 

As tilings are now, a Christian employer seems to 
look upon his workmen as so many machines to help 
him make money for himself and family, and to give 
to the rest of mankind and the Church. This ought 
to be exactly reversed. His first interest, after his 
own family, should be those who work under him. 

It is diihcult to present the abstract description of 
what Christian men should be, and what they should 
do with their wealth. But there is a concrete case at 
hand who has lived in our day, and who so nearly 
fulfills my highest ideal of the rich Christian man, 
that I beg leave to present an account of him found 
in the July number of the Homiletic Be view, 1890. 
The subject of the article is the celebrated merchant, 
Mr. Samuel Morley, and the writer. Dr. J. M. Ludlow: 

Mr. Morley was a man of vast business capacity. IMuch of 
this he inherited, as he inherited the business itself. He was 
able to manage a manufacturing enterprise that gave employ- 
ment to fully eight thousand persons, involving an almost infi- 
nite amount of details, as represented by a single mail delivery 
of over two thousand letters, and to make this gigantic and in- 
tricate machine run without a jar. The business was conducted 
upon the higlfiest principles not only of finance, but of morals, 
so that his name became the synonym of mercantile lionor. 
. . . Samuel Morley was also a leader in English charities. 
Just after his death, the Prince of Wales said in a public speech : 
" He will go down to posterity as one of the greatest philanthro- 
l)ist3 of the age." The extent of his money donations to char- 
itable projects will never be known. Certainly he was the larg- 
est individual giver in England. He did not concentrate his 
benefactions as Peabody did, but scattered them with the thou- 
sand calls of daily needs. Among his papers are great stacks 
of begging letters marked with amounts he directed his secretary 
to send in response, ranging from $50 to $30,000 in single dona- 
tions. And yet there was no giving at hap-hazard. Ever^^ case 
was searched out with as much care as if it had been a request 



154 Man^ Money, and the Bible. 

for credit in business. He doled nothing; but took an intense 
delight in watching the happiness he created, as we Imagine the 
all-good Creator delights in the flowers that bloom on the dull 
earth. . . . He once offered a school prize for the best essay. 
A little fellow often years ambitiously competed for it, but was 
unsuccessful. Mr. Morley sent him a gift of equal value for 
having tried so hard. The boy was Charles Spurgeon, and the 
event was the first knitting of the chord of affection that lasted 
for life between the greatest of preachers and the greatest of 
merchants. 

Prominent were his religious donations. He was a great dis- 
senter, a thorough believer in the independent system of Church- 
es. He endowed the colleges of his denomination, pushed all 
schemes for its evangelistic work at home and- abroad. Poor 
Churches were sustained, half-paid ministers made comfortable, 
and mission chapels planted among the destitute. 

It was the writer's happiness to be thrown with Mr. Morley 
as a fellow-passenger across the Atlantic. He had a remarkable 
power of winning even strangers to him, and was seldom seen 
without a group of persons about him. Though there were 
clergymen on board, Morley must lead the Sunday evening 
meeting, giving out the hymns, singing them heartily, and mak- 
ing a happy little talk, that caught the heart-strings of every- 
body — Jew, infidel, and Christian of every sort. 

Another of Mr. Morley's hobbies was that of political reform, 
especially such as aimed at the liberties of the common man. 
As early as 1843, though a young man, he thre^^ himself heart 
and soul into the agitation for the repeal of the corn laws, the 
enormous tax upon foreign grain importations that kept the 
working-man in an almost starving condition, the repeal of 
which made England a market for our great Western' prairies, 
enriching both countries. In this young Morley stood shoulder 
to shoulder with Richard Cobden and John Bright. He was 
President of tiie Administrative Reform Association, or Civil 
Service League, with such men to help him as Layard, Charles 
Napier, Charles Dickens, which, after fifteen years, succeeded 
in getting open competitive examinations instead of secret pat- 
ronage of government officers, and in breaking up the. habit of 
purchasing rank in the army, leaving such lionors to be M'on on 
the field or in militarv council 



What Can Individuals Do? 155 

As his wealth increased, he felt more and more his brother- 
hood with the poor man. He adopted a pension/ system for the 
workmen as they were disabled through years. He visited 
these worthy fellows, took them by the hand, and left some- 
thing substantial in it. In no year did he distribute less than 
ten thousand dollars pension money in his own factories. He 
never discharged his faithful men. If trade was dull, their 
hours were shortened. When trade was brisk, they had not the 
face to strike. His factories contained not only work-ro6ms, 
but library, reading-room, parlor, and all the ordinary conven- 
iences of a respectable club-house. The buildings were always 
models of cleanliness, light, ventilation, for he held himself re- 
sponsible for the health and good cheer of every one of the thou- 
sands he employed. 

The house of Morley always paid the highest wages, was the 
first to lead in an advance, and always the last to order a reduc- 
tion. His care of his men was not left merely to a good system. 
He paid the salaries of his clerks with his own hand, that he 
might look every one of them in the face and have a word with 
each that would establish a sort of kinship — that kindness which 
is more than kin. There was no man to whom the huml)]est 
would go more quickly if in trouble than to the boss; and, if 
necessary, the boss would go to the man's home. He took a pride 
in having all welt housed. The village where he lived he 
changed from a tumbled-down nest of houses into one of the 
prettiest home neighborhoods in England; reconstructing the 
cottages, planting trees, laying out gardens, offering prizes for 
the best kept places, and sup[)lying gratuitously all shruljbery 
from his own nursery, building a beautiful chapel [undenomi- 
national], his motto being, "Think and let think," though he 
had very decided convictions about dogma himself. Mr. Mor- 
ley looked beyond his own employees, and was tlie great patron 
of the Society, to lielp every man to a home, which erected on 
easy terms nearly five thousand cottages of the most improved 
sanitary model. He threw himself purse and heart into the 
Agricultural Union. In 1874 a farm laborer could not earn more 
than nine shillings, about $2.25, a week, with sixpence a day for 
a child to act as scarecrow. By this association wages were 
doubled. His motto was for every man fair wages, a cottage, 
and a garden. How his l)lood tingled with shame and wrath 



156 3Ian, Money ^ and the Bible, 

when be read the words of a certain political economist class- 
ing the plow and the plowman together as commodities to be 
bought! In the public newspapers Morley, the capitalist, de- 
nounced the idea, and wrote words as strong in behalf of the 
dignity of the laborer as Henry George could have penned. He 
offered his pen, his tongue, his vote in Parliament to the cause. 
If labor candidates needed funds to secure their fair canvass in 
any election, his purse was theirs for the campaign. 

In tliis noble man we have almost the exact embodi- 
ment of my idea of what a rich man ought to do for his 
race. "Whether all his methods were wise or not does 
not affect the question; his spirit was right, and his. 
intentions good. The popularity of such men as he 
and our own Peter Cooper with the working-classes 
while they lived, and the mourning for them when 
dead, shows that such a recognition of them as fel- 
low-men, such an effort to do their duty to .the work- 
men, broke down entirely the wall between the classes 
of which we hear. If our rich would follow their 
example, the hearts of the poor would be completely 
captured by them. 

4. What can a rich man who is not a Christian do ? 
I will include in this inquiry not only the openly un- 
godly, but also the vast number of nominal Christiaus 
who are in all our Churches from the ranks of wealth. 
Of course the best possible step would be to become 
genuine Christians, and let the principles of Christi- 
anity rule their lives. Merely being connected with 
some Church or simply patronizing religion will not 
do. There has been too much of that sort of religion 
among them which Thackeray satirized when he rep- 
resented the attitude of the upper classes to Christi- 
anity as reminding him of a committee of lords of 
some charity hospital tasting soup upon some public 



What Can Individiials Do? 157 

occasion with an air that said: "This is excellent 
soup, for paupers." E-eligion don't need your pat- 
ronage; nor does the poor man need religion any more 
than you do; nor is there one standard of morals for 
the poor, and another for you. 

But whether the rich man accepts religion or not, 
he can accept and act upon that idea of property 
which Christianity presents. This is the only defen- 
sible position for him to take. If he rejects this, he 
cuts the very basis from under himself. But it is 
manifestly unfair for him to accept these principles 
so far as they affect his title to property, and then 
reject them in the control of the property which they 
confer on him. Now if the wealthy classes will just 
begin to acknowledge their trusteeship, and to use 
their surplus in some way for the general good, it 
will be a long step in the right direction. Such a 
step would extinguish the fuse to the bombs that 
threaten to blow up all their rights. 

A public sentiment among the wealthy, that a man 
must do something for the race or disgrace himself, 
would result in converting many a society dude into 
a man. And such a sentiment would be strictly just. 
The man who has a surplus and will not give it to 
benefit mankind is an embezzler of trust money, and 
would be treated right if society so regarded him. 
"Society " thus could be a mighty help, and it would 
be an act of self-preservation. 



CHAPTER 11. 

What Can and Should the State Do? 

THE State is God's instrument in this world for 
tlie accomplisliment of a certain purpose. Paul, 
in E/omans xiii. 1-7, clearly reveals our relation to 
the government, and the government's relation to 
God. He speaks with divine authority, saying: "Let 
every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For 
there is no power but of God: the powers that be are 
ordained of God. AVhosoever therefore resisteth the 
power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that 
resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For 
rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. 
Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that 
which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the 
same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. 
But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he 
beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister 
of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that 
doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not 
only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For, for 
this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's 
ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. 
Pender therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom 
tribute is due; custom to whom custord; fear to whom 
fear; honor to whom honor." 

Here then we have it, " the powers that be are or- 
dained of God," and " they are God's ministers." 
Further, the laws of government, constituted by 
(158) 



What Can and Should the State Do? 159 

proper authority, become tlie laws of God, and diso- 
bedience to them becomes sin; for, " Whosoever re- 
si steth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: 
and they that resist shall receive to themselves dam- 
nation." What a tremendous authority this gives to 
human enactments! And all these things are said of 
government at its worst, that of Nero in Rome. Nor 
is this remarkable passage merely an exhortation to 
the Christians to be submissive to authority, but it 
bases such submission on the absolute statements 
made here of the divine authority of all government. 
This position Peter also presents in 1 Peter ii. 13, 14. 
The Saviour himself, at the very time he was about to 
suffer death by an unjust decree of a Judge, says: 
" Thou couldest have no power at all against me, ex- 
cept it were given thee from above." 

Government is as surely a divine institution as the 
Church; and not only the abstract institution of gov- 
ernment, but the existing governments are divine in- 
stitutions. Their laws, where they do not controvene 
the higher laws of God, are God's laws, and the vio- 
lation of them brings u^jon man the divine condem- 
nation. One of the very evils of our day is the irrev- 
erence of the masses for the laws of the land. They 
regard law merely as the enactments of legislators, 
their neighbors, no wiser or better than themselves, 
to be respected if the government has power to en- 
force the penalty of the violation, but having no sa- 
credness. And does not the Legislature itself, and the 
courts which construe its statutes, take the same view 
as to the merely human origin and authority of gov- 
ernment and its laws? 

Nothing could give such authority to our laws as to 



160 Mmi^ Monetj^ and the Bible. 

thus base them on the authority of God. It would 
lead to greater reverence for all law on the part of 
the people, and it would prevent so much hasty leg- 
islation. In this view of the subject, government is 
God's instrument, and the Bible is as much the guide 
book of the statesman as of the preacher. This is 
not to unite Church and State, except in the eyes of 
those who would dethrone God in the realm of nature 
as well as that of sociology. The Bible would thus 
become the very basis of government, ranking above 
Magna Charta or tlie Constitution. But this Bible 
would be interpreted by the State itself and not the 
Church. The Bible thus becomes the text-book for 
statesmanship, as well as theology. But the states- 
man does not have to kneel at the feet of the priest 
to inquire the meaning of the Word; he simply uses 
his common sense, subject to review by the great 
public. 

What are the functions of government? becomes 
now a pertinent inquiry. The passages we have 
quoted show that one great branch of its work is to 
restrain evil doers. God has another instrument de- 
signed to make man better, to reach his heart and 
put therein the principles of love, so that he becomes 
a benevolent factor in society, and not a malevolent 
one. In the meantime, however, while this leaven is 
working, there is a mighty section of the human race 
under the domination of selfishness, and this section 
needs to be restrained from committing depredations 
upon one another, and upon all others. To restrain 
them from the commission of crime by punishing all 
criminal acts is one of the chief functions of the 
State. 



What Can and Should the State Do? 161 

Wlien Clirisfc, the head of the Church, was ap- 
proached upon the subject of dividing an inherit- 
ance justly, he said: "Who made me a judge and a 
divider over you?" He thereby repudiated the at- 
tendance upon such secular matters as a part of his 
work or that of his Church. It is left, then, as a part 
of the work of the State. 

"Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and 
to God the things that are God's," leaves the two 
questions of tax and currency in the hands of the 
State as the proper agency to attend to them. 

The Bible does not attempt to set up a model gov- 
ernment. It does not, even in the case of the Church, 
do more than lay down great principles, which man 
was to apply to the changing circumstances of life. 
So we have for the State merely great principles, 
broad lines marked out, and all the minutice and de- 
tails left to man. 

The punishment and prevention of crime, the just 
settlement of differences, the management of the cur- 
rency, and the method of securing a support for its 
necessary institutions, and all that these things natur- 
ally involve, are committed to this secular arm of the 
Almighty upon earth. How then can this divinely 
instituted State help on a reform in money matters? 

1. The State should frankly acknowledge God as 
the source of its authority, and should hold his Word 
as the received basis of all its laws. What other 
basis is there for government to rest on that will com- 
mand the assent of mankind; or, what is more im- 
portant, will command man's respect and reverence? 
The contrat social is an exploded hypothesis to which 
no thinker of our dny pays any respect. And yet 
11 



1G2 Man y Money ^ and the Bible. 

mucli of the political reasoning of our time proceeds 
on the supposition that this myth is true philosophy. 
Such is tiie position of those who contend against 
the recognition of God or his Word by government. 
Others think that such a recognition of the Bible 
would constitute union between Church and State. 
Such, however, is not the fact, for the great majority 
of this nation believe in the Bible, and the various 
Churches claim it as the foundation of their doctrine, 
and but a small minority reject it. Yet these Church- 
es are divided upon the interpretation of the same 
book. Now the State is not asked to accept some 
one Church's interpretation of this book, or to in- 
dorse any Church, or to forward the interests of any 
one organization ; but to acknowledge in theory what 
is largely the fact — her indebtedness to the Word of 
God, and her dependence upon it. Then ihe State 
should adjust her laws to this Word of God. Then 
Church and State, God's two great agencies, would, 
with united voices, say to mankind: *'Thou shalt not." 
Who does not know that the authority of each would 
be vastly augmented in this case? As it is, what 
wonder the enactments of the State are evaded with- 
out scruple by men, when the State itself annuls the 
divine law in reference to divorce and the Sabbath? 
If the law is simply some other men's ideas of what 
I ought to do, then man feels no hesitancy to evade 
it, if he finds occasion to do so, and it does not in- 
volve too much risk. But when law comes with di- 
vine authority, and the Church, which enforces this 
authority upon the conscience, tells us that in diso- 
beying the law of tlie State we disobey God, then law 
is exalted to its true place, and man will treat it with 



What Can and Should the State Do? 163 

added reverence. But so long as tlie State itself puts 
aside ruthlessly the law of God, and goes so far as to 
legalize what it distinctly condemns, the Church can- 
not teach otherwise than that the conscience must be 
governed by the Bible, no matter what the statutes 
of the country may say. This confuses the con- 
science, and makes men doubtful of the authority of 
all law. It subtracts much from the force of the v^oice 
of both Church and State; these two, which ought 
to supplement and complement each other, are found 
in opposition, each weakening and destroying the in- 
fluence of the other. Right here we find the source 
of the almost universal irreverence for law simply as 
law which is so greatly lamented among us. If a 
given course is greatly condemned or approved, it is 
not because it is or is not lawful, but entirely owing 
to the instruction of the conscience in sources inde- 
pendent of government. How great a loss this is to 
government it is hard to tell; it is incalculable. Yet 
we find government in its highest councils, and its 
highest courts, compelled to apjoeal for authority to 
this Word of God, which, when it does not suit its 
convenience, is so readily set aside. 

This recognition 'of the Bible as the base of the 
authority and the laws of government would neces- 
sarily make it a text-book in our schools and col- 
leges along with the Constitutions of the States and 
general government. Whether the work of education 
properly belongs to the Church or the State is a de- 
batable question; but it is not debatable that educa- 
tion should involve moral as well as intellectual de- 
velopment; nor is it hardly debatable that morals are 
so dependent on religion as to be inseparable from it; 



164 Man, Money, and the Bible. 

.*■ 

and it certainly lies beyond controversy that Christi- 
anity is the religion of this country. It seems to me 
that this recognition of the secular side of the Bible, 
and its relation to the State, independently of its 
purely theological contents, would give us the foun- 
dation for instruction in morals based upon it, and 
entirely unaffected by sectarian bias. 

2. Government, as God's secular arm upon earth, 
should be like its Master, and have no respect to per- 
sons; should be without partiality. There should be 
no "class legislation." Not only the laws as framed 
should be impartial, but the execution of them should 
be without partiality. In the execution of our crim- 
inal laws the same character of offense should have 
the same character of punishment meted out to it, 
whether the offender be rich or poor. The drunken 
member of a club should not be sent home in a cab, 
and the poor man in the same condition hurried off 
in a police wagon to the lock-up. The game of poker 
among gentlemen should not be overlooked, and the 
negro "crap" players hauled up before the magis- 
trate. Government should be careful in extending 
the limits of the law against any given kind of con- 
duct; it should be sure that such conduct was a real 
crime against some individual of society, or against 
the well-being of society as a whole; but having out- 
lawed the conduct, the law should be executed in high 
society as well as in low society. Nothing is more 
the cause of the characteristic uneasiness and disre- 
gard of laws of our day than this partiality in their 
administration. 

Government ought also to protect the poor man s 
property against the rich man's fraud, as well as the 



What Can and Should the State Do? 165 

ricli man's property against the poor man's stealing. 
There are selfish and lawless men in each class that* 
will get their neighbor's goods without an equivalent 
if they can. The law ought to restrain this selfish- 
ness, and to prevent it accomplishing its purpose, 
whether it be a combination of rich men to fleece the 
poor by raising prices upon some necessity, or of 
thieves to carry on horse stealing. Wherever there is 
an effort to get property without an equivalent of some 
sort, there is an effort to commit a crime. Against 
all such crimes laws should be enacted and executed. 
Not all trusts and combiuations can be condemned as 
such unlawful concerns, for many of them conduct a 
legitimate business. It is not the "trust" that is 
criminal, but the effort to get property for nothing, 
and that whether it is done by one man or many com- 
bining together. And all such breakings of the eighth 
commandment should be classed and punished as 
equally infamous. If there is any difference, the rich 
banker who steals the savings of the poor committed 
to his keeping is a worse rogue than the sneak thief 
who steals the banker's overcoat. Yet the last is steal- 
ing and the first is embezzlement; and if the embezzle- 
ment is managed with enough skill, the criminal may 
still be found in good society. Such false distinc- 
tions should be done away with, and all thieves, big 
and little, put upon an equality. 

3. The burdens of supporting government should 
be so adjusted as to be fair to all parties and classes. 
It is not so easy a matter to determine what is fair 
as it appears at first glance. It is by no means sim- 
ply assessing an ad valorem tax upon all. There are 
other burdens, besides the support of the State offi- 



166 Man^ Money , and the B'lhle. 

cers and institutions, tliat belong to society as a whole, 
•and. are to be taken into consideration. It seems to 
me that we have been thrown off the right track by 
overvaluing property and undervaluing man. The 
protection of man is the primary object of govern- 
ment; the protection of his property is merely inci- 
dental to this. Hence this secondary purpose of 
government is to be sacrificed to the first if they 
come in conflict. The government is as much inter- 
ested in the welfare of the lowliest of her citizens as 
of the highest; and it is the government's interest 
that each individual be a contented, happy, and use- 
ful member of society. When the individual becomes 
otherwise, he is a burden to society. Society is com- 
pelled to take care of every one of its members. It 
endeavors to make each earn his own living. But in 
the case of the criminal and the pauj^er, some other 
way must be provided, and this way has always been 
very expensive. But there are members of society, 
as children, who cannot take care of themselves. These 
individuals can always be most cheaply and satisfac- 
torially provided for by the heads of the families to 
which they naturally belong. That this is the duty of 
such a head of the family does not alter the fact that 
he is doing a public service in the discharge of his 
duty, and one which the public should take cogni- 
zance of; for when society has, without the inter- 
vention of any such agent, to support an individual, 
it is both very expensive and unsatisfactory; and es- 
pecially in the case of children it is almost impossi- 
ble to accomplish the desired end: the making them 
into good citizens. So we see that the burden of the 
proper support of his family by the imterfamilias 



What Can and Should the State Do? 167 

ought to be put to his credit in the adjustment of the 
burdens of society. 

To illustrate what I mean, let us take four iudivid- 
uals, A, B, 0, and D. A has an income of $100,000, 
B of $10,000, C of $1,000, and D of $400, and let each 
family be composed of the man, the wife, and three 
children. Now the government is as much interested 
in one of these individuals as another. It is specially 
interested in the development of each of those chil- 
dren into a self-respecting and useful member of so- 
ciety. Now fix upon some per cent, as representing 
society's legitimate claim upon each income, includ- 
ing in the calculation the burden of the supjDort of 
the family. Let us say, as a mere basis of our calcu- 
lation, that the State takes half of each income, and 
out of this half it allows the support of the family, 
in that rank of society which it occupies, to be de- 
ducted. This will leave A with $50,000 undistributed, 
and $50,000 to go to society, including his own fam- 
ily. Surely $5,000 will be enough to allow each mem- 
ber of A's family for a support. This will make 
$25,000 to be deducted, leaving $25,000 due the gov- 
ernment for its general support. B will be left in 
the undisturbed possession of $5,000, and required 
to contribute an equal amount to the State, less the 
support of his family. As we have supposed that the 
income of the first is ten times that of the next, we 
will also suppose that their legitimate support differs 
in the same ratio. This will give B $500 to supply 
the wants of each of his family, or $2,500 in all, leav- 
ing $2,500 due the State from his income. So, in the 
case of C, he will hav6 $500 for himself, and then 
$500 for the government, less the support of his f am- 



168 Man, Money, and the Bible. 

ily. If we were to allow the same ratio for the sup- 
port of C's family as in B's case^ it would give them 
only $50 each for food, clothes, mental and moral 
culture, and all other legitimate items of a support. 
This is manifestly insufficient. In fact, I cannot see 
how he can support his family on less than the whole 
$500 allowed for that purpose plus the support of the 
State. But we will suppose that the State takes $25 
of the amount, and leaves $475 for the family. C still 
has $500 to draw on in case of need, and then lay up 
something for a rainy day besides. 

Now we come to the most difficult case: that of D, 
with his $400 a year. Using our same principle, we 
would put aside $200 for himself, and $200 for the 
government, less the support of his family. But $200 
will not nearly support his family in the way to make 
them self-respecting and to give his children an op- 
portunity to make good citizens. The cheapest food 
will cost them $150, and their clothing at least $150 
more; so that the support of the family will take up 
all that is allowed for the claim of society and $100 
besides. The other $100 is not too much to be held 
for cases of sickness, or other emergencies. So that 
the State should accept the right support of the fam- 
ily by D as a full discharge of his duty to society. 
If the State overburdens him, and makes it impossi- 
ble to properly support this family, it will result in 
discouraging him and impairing his earning powers; 
hence he will drop to a lower income. It will also 
result in the family, compelled to live poorer than 
their neighbors, being dissatisfied and unhappy. 
They will lose self-respect. In this condition there 
is constant danger of the family as a whole, or some 



What Can and Should the State Do? 169 

individuals of it, dropping into the pauper class, when 
society, instead of getting any thing out of them for 
the general support, will have to support them; or 
into the criminal class, where they would be both 
more expensive and more dangerous. Manifestly the 
cheapest and the best thing for society to do is to 
leave D to devote all his earnings to the decent sup- 
port of his wife and children. This, of course, is true 
of all who command a less income than has been sup- 
posed in the case of D. This would lift the whole 
burden of the support of the general government off 
of the poor and put it on the rich. How different is 
this from the actual tax system of our nation ? Ac- 
cording to this system, our man D would have a bur- 
den of at least S60 to bear, resulting in so much tax 
on him, though the greater part of it would never 
reach 'the coffers of the government, which is all the 
worse for the poor man, and to the advantage of the 
capitalists. 

Would this adjustment of the burdens of State so 
that the poor man would be left to support his fami- 
ly decently, and the burden of the support of the 
government be placed upon those strong enough to 
bear it, be a just arrangement? In my opinion it 
would be just, equitable, and politic. 

We must not forget in the discussion of the equi- 
ties here that the support of the family is to be count- 
ed in, since if the man does not support his family 
it is thrown upon the government at an added ex- 
pense. But not only is the poor man bearing his 
part of the common burden of society in supplying 
the wants of his family. He has less need of the pro- 
tection of government than the rich man. So long as 



170 Man^ Mone!/^ and the Bible. 

a man's wealth is at a moderate sum, lie can more or 
Jess look after it, and protect it himself. The police 
of the city do very little toward the protection of a 
poor man's proj^erty; but when a man becomes rich, 
he cannot keep his own eye on his goods, he becomes 
more and more dependent upon the police to protect 
his posessions. What would Wanamaker's immense 
establishment be worth to him if there were no gov- 
ernment m Philadelphia for one day's time? The 
mob would gut it in a few hours. But the man in 
that city who owns simply a good home can make it 
too dangerous, in proportion to the booty to be ob- 
tained, for the mob to enter his door. 

Again, there is more or less of "unearned incre- 
ment" in the increase of all great fortunes — that is, 
of value resulting from the existence and growth of 
society and not from the labors of the individual; 
and this is true in other cases as well as in the well- 
known one of land. If a merchant deserves credit 
for winning the good-will of his fellow-men, it does 
not alter the fact that he owes his prosperity to the 
good- will of society. And now the growth of society 
will result in the growth of his trade and profits. 
Thus the growth of society as a whole, which is im- 
possible except under a stable government, results in 
the increase of many values directly, as the result of 
this growth itself and not of any man's labor. But 
this wealth, added to the sum of things by the direct 
growth of society, is generally garnered by a few. I 
repeat, there is more or less of this unearned incre- 
ment in all great fortunes. Society can rightly tax 
this heavily, for it is hers. 

Hence we conclude that it would be equitable to 



What Can and Should the State Do? 171 

adjust the burdens of government so as to lighten the 
burden of the poor man and to increase the burden 
of the rich. How this had better be done I will leave 
it to the statesman to find out. It is for practical 
statemanship to work out the details. 

4. The government should so modify the laws of 
inheritance and bequest as to stop the accumulation 
and perpetuation of vast fortunes in the hands of in- 
dividuals. To this end bequest might be done away 
with entirely. I do not think that there should be 
any limit put upon the legitimate acquisitions of any 
one, or upon his right to control or to give away his 
property so long as he lives. But put it out of the 
hand of a man to perpetuate such vast possessions 
when he is dead. Then limit the amount a man may 
inherit, say to $1,000,000. And limit inheritance to 
children from parents, and parents from children, 
and do away with it in all cases of collateral relation- 
ship. What sense is there in the present law that 
thwarts the will of the great Tilden, deprives society 
at large of its just rights to that estate, and puts it in 
the hands of men who had nothing to do with its 
acquisition, and for whom the gatherer of this wealth 
cared little? These few changes w^ould violate no 
natural right, would not infringe upon the right of 
private property, and yet they would stop the danger- 
ous tendency of wealth to drift into the hands of a 
few favored individuals and families. 

5. The function of government to suppress crime 
involves its prevention, and the greatest move gov- 
ernment could make in that direction would be the 
prohibition of the liquor traffic. This would decrease 
crime and its expense, it would stop one of the great- 



172 Man, Money, and the Bible. 

est leakages in the earnings of the poor, hence tend 
to equalize distribution of joroperty, and it would in- 
crease the amount of wealth and also the productive 
capacity of man. At the same time- it would not vio- 
late any personal right of man, for no man has a 
right to injure another or to injure society. As this 
traffic is sought to be destroyed because it is an in- 
jury to society, and as society has the right to sup- 
press all that is injurious, if it is defended it must be 
on the ground that it is not injurious to the body 
politic. I have no time to enter into this argument 
now, but I will say that I have no more doubt of so- 
ciety, through the government, having the right to 
suppress this evil than I have of its right to punish 
the murderer. Then the wife and children have an 
inalienable right to the earnings of the husband and 
father, or so much as is needed for a support, and the 
government ought to see that this right is not taken 
away by the saloon-keeper. 



CHAPTEE III. 

What Can and Ought the Church to Do? 

THE Church is God's agency for saving men. 
He designs by means of the Chnrch to reach 
the individual man and convert him from a selfish 
into a benevolent being. The Church is to propa- 
gate the doctrine of Christ, and to persuade men to 
accept him as their Saviour. The Church is to labor 
to present man with the right ethical standards, and 
to bring men's characters to correspond to these stand- 
ards. She finds all her doctrines and moral stand- 
ards in the Bible, and it is her duty to impress these 
upon the hearts and consciences of men. As the 
State is God's strong arm to prevent man from drop- 
ping into a lower level, so the Church is his arm to 
lift man to higher and nobler heights. The prime 
mission of one is to restrain man from evil, of the 
otlier to persuade men to do good. Each is necessa- 
ry, and each is divinely instituted. Each depends 
upon the Bible, each is supplementary of the other, 
and each is independent of the other. The sphere 
of each is distinctly marked. The Church should 
attend to spiritual things and leave the management 
of secular affairs to the State. But the Church must 
lift her voice for the right, and against the wrong, 
however such a course may affect the State or the 
parties which control the State. But the extent of 
her responsibility is met when she bears witness to 
the truth. She must declare the right principles, 

(173) 



174 Man, Money, and the Bible. 

but she is not to use the machinery of the Church to 
push any policy or doctrine into practical legislation 
in the State. 

The members of the Churcli, however, including 
her ministers, have all the right of citizens, and they 
have the right to combine as citizens with one an- 
other and with other citizens, to accomplish any po- 
litical object they may desire. They have forfeited 
no franchise in becomhig Christians or preachers of 
the gospel. But in all this political work they must 
be sure to act in their capacity of citizenship, and 
not to drag the Church into the political arena. The 
temptation to grasp any machinery that will advance 
their object is great, and it has not always been re- 
sisted by ministers and Church-members as it should 
have been. 

There has been an error equally prevalent on the 
other side. If men find ministers and members of 
the Churches laboring to advance any political pro- 
ject, they often jump to the conclusion that because 
such action would be wrong if taken by the Church 
in its organized capacity it is therefore wrong for 
those who constitute the Church to do this thing in 
their capacity of citizens. But such is by no means 
the fact. 

To see what tiie Chnrch ought to do. in the present 
to help in monetary reforms it will be well to exam- 
ine her work in the reforms of the past. The natural 
position of the Church is that of a conservative. 
Her book tells her: "The powers that be are ordained 
of God." Hence she is naturally set for the defense 
of the present existing order of things at any given 
time, until she is convinced both of the injustice of 



What Can and OugJd fite Church to Do? 175 

such order and that it is not the best that can be 
done at that time. Hence almost every reform has 
at some point in its development met the opposition 
of the Church. Hardly a reformer but what has at- 
tacked the Church under the mistaken notion that it 
was the great enemy of reform. Many reformers 
have started out from among the ranks of Christian 
ministers; and because they could not hurry the 
Church forward as rapidly as they wished to travel, 
have landed among her bitterest enemies. The 
Church is right to proceed slowly, to "prove all 
things; hold fast that which is good." She acts as a 
great breakwater to hold in check the restless pas- 
sions of men who would often destroy what they have 
before providing something better, if they were not 
held in check by some such power. 

Yet no reform in any age that has met the united 
opposition of the Church has ever succeeded. In 
every successful reform there has been a point reached 
where the principle involved in it is believed in by 
a great part of the Church, and enforced by a large 
portion of her ministry. When the reform reaches 
this stage of development, the Church as an organi- 
zation is put in a very difficult position; the eager 
reformers, and those of her own members who have 
accepted their doctrine, are anxious for her not only 
to preach the right doctrine, but to use all her power 
to push the political movement to a successful issue. 
They often go so far as to try to force the Church to 
compell her members to unite in their efforts or be 
expelled from her membership. On the other hand, 
those who oppose the proposed reforms, and especial- 
ly those of her members who side with them, resent 



176 Man, Money, and the Bible. 

^very utterance from the pulpit or from Cliurcli as- 
semblies that enforces the principle which they con- 
demn, and they contend strenuously that the Church 
is going beyond its right limits, that she is invading 
the field of party politics, that the movement means 
the union of Church and State, and that liberty is 
about to be forever destroyed. To steer between 
these two factions, to hold by the truth and proclaim 
it as truth, and yet not be entangled in party politics, 
becomes very difficult indeed. 

Not only has no reform that met the united opposi- 
tion of the Church ever succeeded, but no reform that 
has secured the indorsement of the great mass of the 
Churches, and become the settled conviction of the 
ministers, has ever failed of eventual success. Then 
only do reforms gather that moral momentum that is 
needed to bring victory; then only is the conscience 
of the masses reached; and only when conscience is 
reached, when it kindles the fires of the heart, are 
things brought to that white heat of enthusiasm 
which consumes the debris of the past, and turns out 
the new coin of reform. Do kings, steadily retreating 
before the encroaching demands of the people, take 
refuge behind the doors of the Church, and claim the 
divine right of kings? Taught of God to uphold ex- 
isting governments, and to respect its representatives, 
the Church will defend for a time the king and the 
doctrine. But when at length the eyes of the Church 
are opened to the fact that this man is not exercising 
his divine mission for its ordained purpose, but as a 
vantage point to indulge in personal vice and to tyran- 
nize over the people; when she learns that the divine 
establishment does not mean the divine appointment 



What Can and Ought the Church to Do? 177 

of any special form of government, or protection for 
wicked governors; when the Church realizes these 
facts, and withdraws her protection from the royal 
culprit, his doom has always been sealed. Just so 
with every reform that has succeeded in establishing 
itself among men. 

So it has been with the present social order, with 
the received customs of getting and holding proper- 
ty. The wealthy classes have naturally found in the 
Church a protector of the right of private property, 
both because it commends itself to the conservative 
judgment, and she finds it recognized in her Bible. 
But when the Church wakes up to realize how these 
Avealthy classes are ignoring every obligation that 
rests upon them as such, that their wealth is not 
at all held as a trust, but as means to indulge 
themselves, that every condition which God has af- 
fixed to the title he gives is being violated, then it 
will become the duty of the Church and her minis- 
try to speak in no uncertain sound on these great 
subjects. 

1. The first duty of the Church in the present cri- 
sis is to study carefully these great principles in- 
volved in these questions, and especially to find out 
the teaching of the Bible on the subject, and then to 
fearlessly deliver the truth to men as God shall give 
her to see it. She should not be deterred by the op- 
position she will awaken on the one hand, nor should 
she be hurried into political alliances on the other. 
She should find out the truth and preach it. 

2. She should insist upon her members putting in 
practice the principles of Christ in money matters as 
in all else. She should deliver a faithful gospel to 

12 



178 Man, Money, and the Bible. 

her rich members; she should show them Vv^hat Christ 
requires of them. She should do all she can to 
awaken a sentiment in her own ranks in favor of the 
trusteeship of wealth, not as a theory but in practice; 
and condemning all misuse of the sacred trust God 
has committed to his wealthy children, she should 
lift her voice in condemnation of the sinful indul- 
gence and the wasteful extravagance of the very rich. 
She should let all jDarties know that she has no de- 
fense for property that is obtained or held contrary 
to the law of God. She should teach the wicked rich 
that they cannot fall behind her bulwarks to fight 
socialism, and at the same time ignore every princi- 
ple wliich she has been commissioned to preach. 
Let her say to them: "Accept the principles of the 
Bible as they relate to money matters, and embody 
those principles in your lives, and we will defend 
your private title to the last; but if you refuse this, 
then you must get from behind our fortifications, 
and fight the socialist out in the open field, and we 
will not lift a voice or a hand in your defense." 

The Church must herself believe in her Master, 
must believe that he is wiser than all others in all 
ages, must believe that only his infinite mind can 
grasp the laws of sociology, must believe that what- 
ever ho has revealed is true, and that all his princi- 
ples can and should be put in practice, and she 
should demand that we make experiment of them in 
practical life. It may have been impracticable in the 
past to have put some of these principles to the test, 
some may lie beyond our present development; but 
assuredly the w^orld has reached the point where the 
Church should insist on trying the economic princi- 



What Can and Ought the Church to Do? 179 

j)les of his word, a point where the world iiseds and 
must have these principles put in actual practice, or 
she will seek for a different order. Christianity is on 
trial in this crisis as she has never been before. If 
her representatives let the world go elsewhere for the 
solution of the present problems than to Christ, it 
will be such a disparagement of the Master as has 
never before been given; and it will be a blow from 
which his cause will recover with difficulty. If, 
however, man can be persuaded to put the principles 
of Christ to a practical test^ and they do, as if given 
a fair trial they will, solve our difficulties, then the 
peasant of Galilee shall be shown to be the son of 
God, the possessor of infinite wisdom. 

3. The Church, while keeping in sympathy with 
the upper classes if she can, and while defending 
their real rights, must remember that her great mis- 
sion is to the mass of mankind, to God's poor. In 
the Master's day the poor had the gospel preached 
unto them. Woe unto us if we cut the cord of sym- 
pathy between the poor and the cause of Christ. As 
the result of the natural conservatism of the Church 
leading her to a general defense of the right of pri- 
vate property, she has strained the love of many of 
the masses. She has been identified and denounced 
as the mere defender of the rich man. While still 
doing justice to the rich man, and still defending 
him so far as he is right, she must see to it that she 
does not sacrifice the law of Christ in her effort to 
fight the rich man's battles. And she must convince 
the poor man of her real interest in all that affects 
him and his house. She must show him her sym- 
l^athy and extend her hel^:). Never was there a time 



180 Man, Monet/, and the Bible. 

when these two needed one another more than they 
do just now. Great will be the folly of either in an-^ 
tagonizing the other at such a time as this. They 
must stand and fall together. 

4. In this great effort to lead" to a right adjustment 
of economic principles and so help to solve the eco- 
nomic questions that are now distracting the puVjlic 
let not the Church suppose that her mission is ac- 
complished when she establishes a few more charita- 
ble institutions or puts a few of her preachers to lect- 
uring to the people on socialistic questions. Concerts, 
lectures, charitable institutions are well enough in 
their place, but the crisis that is now on us calls for 
something mightier than these; and that something 
is the teaching of Christ put into practice. Christ is 
the Saviour of the world, and he alone can save. 



The End. 




'^ 



